Archived: The Practice Heart of Hounslow

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Practice Heart of Hounslow on 29 November 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• Data showed that cervical screening and childhood immunisation rates were below average. However, despite serving a very challenging population the practice were striving to improve outcomes for them.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment although national GP survey performance was generally below average for caring aspects of the service.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
• Patients said they did not always find it easy to make an appointment with a preferred GP and therefore continuity of care was sometimes an issue. However, the practice were taking action to address this.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Consider ways to improve QOF exception reporting to bring in line with local and national averages.
• Continue to improve cervical screening uptake and childhood immunisation rates to bring in line with local and national averages.
• Improve national GP survey performance in relation to the caring aspects of the service.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice