Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Drs Hulme, Wray, Gough, and Killough, also known as Westway Medical Centre on 10 August 2016. 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.

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses.

• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance.

• Staff had the knowledge and skills to perform their duties. All staff had access to training to support them in their role.

• Patients 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 encouraged all staff and patients to share ideas on how services could be improved. The patient participation group at the practice was active.
• The practice had strong and visible clinical and managerial leadership and governance arrangements.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Patients spoke positively about the practice and told us they were happy with the care they received. The practice offered ‘on line’ appointment booking and repeat prescription requests as well as text reminders to patients about their appointment. Patients we spoke with told us these new facilities were very useful.

Patients we spoke with told us they had sufficient time during the consultation to discuss any concerns and that treatment was explained to them. The practice had procedures in place to keep people safe. The practice nurse checked each month that emergency drugs and oxygen in the practice were in stock, in date and ready to use.

The practice nurse was the infection control lead for the practice. An external audit in September 2013 confirmed the practice was maintaining good standards of infection control.

The practice carried out checks to show applicants for vacancies at the practice were suitable for the post and eligible to work in the UK. They checked the professional registration for newly employed clinical staff and this was repeated annually to show that professional registrations were up to date.

The practice had established a patient participation group (PPG). A PPG is made up of practice staff and patients that are representative of the practice population. We spoke with four patients who were members of the PPG during the inspection. They told us they felt they were listened to and were involved in how the practice was run.

We reviewed the information available to us about Drs Hulme, Wray, Gough, Killough and Chamberlain on 7 June 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.