20 July 2015
During a routine inspection
Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
This is the report from our announced comprehensive inspection of Orrell Park Medical Centre on the 20 July 2015.
Overall the practice is rated as good.
Our key findings were as follows:
- There were systems in place to mitigate safety risks including analysing significant events and safeguarding. Systems were in place to ensure medication including vaccines were appropriately stored and in date. The practice used a pharmacy advisor to ensure the practice was prescribing in line with current guidelines.
- A Local Medical Director had been recently appointed to oversee the clinical governance of the practice and was proactively encouraging the use of clinical audits to ensure patients received treatment in line with best practice standards.
- Patients had their needs assessed in line with current guidance and the practice had a holistic approach to patient care offering longer appointments where necessary.
- Feedback from patients and observations throughout our inspection highlighted the staff were kind, caring and helpful. However some dissatisfaction was expressed with not being able to get through on the telephone to make an appointment and not seeing the same GP for consistency of care.
There were also areas of practice where the provider should make improvements.
The provider should:
- Improve the telephone systems for patients to arrange appointments as a matter of priority.
- Review their appointment system to maximise the number of appointments available for patients when their recruitment plans are fulfilled.
Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)
Chief Inspector of General Practice