Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Drs Shamsee, Ward and Wilding at

Slaithwaite Health Centre on 3 November 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good, although the practice is rated as outstanding for providing safe services.

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.

• Feedback from patients about their care was consistently highly positive and every aspect of the national GP patient survey was higher than local and national averages.

• The practice worked closely with other organisations and with the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure that they meet patients’ needs. For example in providing enhanced training to nurse to enable them to undertake complex dressings in-house.

• 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. For example by providing more accessible chairs for people with mobility issues and providing a fresh water supply for patients’ use.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• The practice had a clear vision which had quality and safety as its top priority. The strategy to deliver this vision had been produced with stakeholders and was regularly reviewed and discussed with staff.
• The practice had strong and visible clinical and managerial leadership and governance arrangements.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

• The practice used every opportunity to learn from internal and external incidents, to support improvement. Learning was based on a thorough analysis and investigation. Significant events were coded to triage the most appropriate response and learning was shared across this location, as well as its partner site; Oaklands Health Centre and the Clinical Commissioning Group. The practice produced a comprehensive annual report which it publicised, sharing learning and actions across the whole team and the patient group. Where applicable the practice shared learning across the wider health network.

• The provider maintained the highest standards in relation to Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) and published an annual statement of compliance within the practice, notifying the patient population of any infection control incidents that had occurred.

• We saw that learning from complaints was embedded into the practice ethos with all team members engaged in reviewing and learning from complaints on a monthly basis. Learning was shared between both Oaklands and Slaithwaite locations in order to maximise opportunities for reflection. Complaints were anonymised and published at the location to both encourage patients to offer their feedback, feel encouraged to make a complaint and see evidence of the provider’s engagement.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice