Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr R Baghdjian and Dr Marcus Jacobs Surgery on 6 January 2017. 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 mostly assessed and well managed.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. In most cases staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• Patients were highly positive about their experiences at the practice. They said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• 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 found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• 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.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

• The practice offered an extended hours clinic on a Sunday for those patients who could not attend during normal working hours. This, along with the way the practice had designed its appointment system assured us that any patient requesting an appointment the same day would have access to one.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Action plans should be documented following infection prevention and control audits and include details of action taken as a result of audit findings.

• The planned training for staff should be completed, for example training around ECG tests for the health care assistant and vaccination update training for nurse practitioner.

• The newly updated scanning and read coding protocol should be embedded into practice and an audit process initiated to ensure clinicians have sight of all necessary correspondence.

• The content of policies and procedures should be updated routinely to reflect current guidance and legislation.

• The prescription logging system should be extended to ensure the location of all blank scrips is recorded.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice