Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Corbridge Medical Group on 9 February 2016. Overall the practice is rated as outstanding.

Our key findings were as follows:

• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. There was a proactive approach to understanding the needs of different groups of people and to deliver care in a way that met their needs and promoted equality.
• 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.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• Feedback from patients was very positive and the practice achieved high scores in the National GP Patient Survey.
• Staff were committed to working collaboratively with other services. The involvement of other organisations was integral to how services were planned and delivered.
• Patients said they were able to get an appointment with a GP when they needed one, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• Extended hours surgeries were offered between 6pm and 7.30pm every Monday evening.
• 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). For example, an information leaflet for patients ‘what to expect at an outpatients appointment’ was developed in conjunction with the PPG.
• The practice had comprehensive policies and procedures governing their activities and there were very good systems in place to monitor and improve quality.
• There was a clear leadership structure in place and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which they acted on.
• There was strong collaboration and support across all staff groups. Staff throughout the practice worked well together as a team.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

• Staff were proactive in carrying out clinical audits to help improve patient outcomes. A significant number of audits had been carried out in the past year (15). There was an audit programme in place. An ‘audit club’ meeting was held every three months and was attended by members of the whole multi-disciplinary team (MDT). All the clinical audits we looked at were relevant, well designed, detailed and showed learning points and evidence of changes to practice.
• Staff were proactively supported to acquire new skills and share best practice. A monthly ‘journal club’ meeting was held to discuss new guidelines. This was attended by the GPs, practice nurses and medicines manager. One of the GP partners had set up a local GP club; this was a monthly education event attended by many GPs from other practices in the area.
• There was a proactive approach to understanding the needs of different groups of people and to deliver care in a way that met their needs and promoted equality. The practice was the preferred practice for a number of students at a local college for young people with learning disabilities, autism spectrum conditions and complex needs (25 patients). Services were tailored to meet those patients’ individual needs. GPs spent a large proportion of their time carrying out home visits (between 15 and 20 each day), due to the high number of elderly and very elderly patients in the area.
• The local village was a designated dementia friendly village. The practice was part of this and signposted patients to the various support groups, including a café designed for patients with dementia. All staff within the practice had been trained as ‘dementia friends’.

However, there was also an area of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

The provider should:

• Provide staff with guidance on the action to take if refrigerator temperatures are higher than the levels recommended by Public Health England.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice