Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Burn Brae Medical Group on 30 July 2015. Overall the practice is rated as outstanding.

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

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.
• The practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes, working with other local providers to share best practice. For example, they had a robust patient focussed approach to reviewing the health needs of patients with long term conditions.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment. Information was provided to help patients understand the care available to them.
• The practice worked closely with other organisations and with the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure that they meet people’s needs.
• The practice implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way it delivered services as a consequence of feedback from patients and from the Patient Participation Group (PPG).
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs. Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand
• The practice had a clear vision which had quality and safety as its top priority. A business plan was in place, was monitored and regularly reviewed and discussed with all staff. High standards were promoted and owned by all practice staff with evidence of team working across all roles.

We saw numerous areas of outstanding practice including:

• The practice made sure all staff had the knowledge and skills to identify and act upon safeguarding concerns. In addition to the training appropriate to their roles, the practice held an annual safeguarding training event to give the staff the opportunity to discuss different safeguarding scenarios and to ensure they were skilled and confident in safeguarding.

• The practice was innovative and reflective of how they could improve the health outcomes for patients. This was evidenced through the active approach to clinical and other audits, and being at the forefront nationally in the care planning approach for long term conditions. The practice performed higher than local and national averages on a number of the indicators in the Quality Outcomes Framework, including those related to hypertension, mental health, dementia and diabetes mellitus.

• The practice took patient involvement in health and well-being very seriously. They took an active approach to involving patients in monitoring and improving their health. This was evidenced in the care planning approach for patients with long-term conditions.

• Following consultation with young people, the practice had implemented a young patient drop in service one afternoon a week, outside school hours, to encourage them to access primary health services. The practice had conducted a further survey to seek young people’s views on what barriers there were to accessing services. To help the practice plan how they could overcome these barriers. The practice developed a leaflet aimed at young people to inform and encourage them about the services offered by the practice. They had achieved accreditation in the ‘You’re Welcome’, the Department of Health ‘Quality criteria for young people friendly health services’.

• There was strong evidence throughout the practice that team spirit and motivation was high. Of particular note was the general feeling of ‘no one is left behind’ and the emphasis on improving health outcomes for all.

• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels within the practice. The practice had an ethos of patient empowerment and this was evident across a number of areas, such as reviewing the health of patients with long-term conditions and engagement with young people.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We reviewed the information available to us about Burn Brae Medical Group on 30 May 2019. We did not find evidence of significant changes to the quality of service being provided since the last inspection. As a result, we decided not to inspect the surgery at this time. We will continue to monitor this information about this service throughout the year and may inspect the surgery when we see evidence of potential changes.