Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

This practice is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection January 2015 – Good)

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Requires improvement

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? - Good

As part of our inspection process, we also look at the quality of care for specific population groups. The population groups are rated as:

Older People – Good

People with long-term conditions – Good

Families, children and young people – Good

Working age people (including those recently retired and students – Good

People whose circumstances may make them vulnerable – Good

People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia) - Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Beacon View Medical centre on 11 December 2017 as part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

• The practice had some systems in place to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. However, they did not have a supply of Oxygen on the premises.
• They had not risk assessed the decision not to carry out a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check on non-clinical staff.
• There was no routine clinical oversight or review of secondary care patient related communications.
• The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. They had a comprehensive schedule of clinical audit and quality improvement activity that could demonstrate improvements to patient care and outcomes. They ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that they were able to access care when they needed it.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

We saw areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice had secured funding to enable them to continue the FLORENCE project. This project enables patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease to be monitored remotely and had resulted in a 70% reduction rate in admissions to hospital for this group of patients.
• The practice drove a systematic programme of clinical audit and quality improvement activity that lead to improvements in patient care and outcomes

There were areas where the provider must make improvements:

• The provide should ensure that care and treatment is being provided in a safe way by doing all that is reasonably practicable to mitigate risks to the health and safety of service users.

The provider should also:

• Review and risk assess the decision not to carry out DBS checks on non-clinical staff
• Continue to monitor and improve telephone access and patient experience of making an appointment

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out a planned comprehensive inspection of Beacon View Medical Centre

on 06 January 2015.

Overall, we rated the practice as good. We found the practice to be good for providing safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led services. Our key findings were as follows:

• The services had been designed to meet the needs of the local population.
• Feedback from patients was positive; they told us staff treated them with respect and kindness.
• Staff reported feeling supported and able to voice any concerns or make suggestions for improvement.
• The practice was visibly clean and tidy.
• The practice learned from incidents and took action to prevent any recurrence.

We saw the following area of outstanding practice:

• The practice participated in the FLORENCE project. The project enabled certain patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to be monitored remotely and self-administer medication from tailored rescue packs when necessary. The project has shown an overall reduction of 70% in the hospital admissions rate of patients involved in the project.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice