This practice is rated as good overall. (Previous rating: April 2015 – Good)

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Requires Improvement

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? - Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Ellis Practice as part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

• Some risks to patients were assessed and well managed, with the exception of those relating to recruitment and medicines prescribing.
• The practice processes in place to learn from and share significant events required improvement. The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients did not always find the appointment system easy to use. The practice had been proactive in improving patient access to the service.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.
• Staff felt supported and team away days included social events away from the practice as a team. 

The areas where the provider must make improvements as they are in breach of regulations are:

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way for patients.
• Ensure recruitment procedures are established and operated effectively.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Take action to ensure all completed induction records are stored in staff files.
• Consider adding safety alerts and significant events as standing agendas in clinical meetings.
• Provide Gillick competency training to junior clinicians.
• Continue to improve and monitor cancer screening uptake.
• Continue to monitor and improve exception reporting.
• Continue to monitor and improve access to the service.
• Continue to monitor and improve on patient satisfaction scores on nurse consultations.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out a comprehensive inspection of Ellis Practice on 28 October 2014. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for being well-led and providing effective, caring and responsive services. It was also good for providing services for the care provided to older people, people with long term conditions, families, children and young people, working age people (including those recently retired and students), people living in vulnerable circumstances and people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia). It required improvement for providing safe services.

Our key findings were as follows:

• Some arrangements were in place to ensure patients were kept safe. For example, staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and report incidents and near misses
• Patients’ needs were suitably assessed and care and treatment was delivered in line with current legislation and best practice.
• We saw from our observations and heard from patients that they were treated with dignity and respect.

• The practice understood the needs of their patients and was responsive to them. The practice had access to Kingsbury Hub, which was a backup service staffed by a nurse practitioner and locum GP’s and contracted by the CCG. The Hub provided an emergency GP service six days a week to patients from a number of practices in the London Borough of Brent

• The practice was well-led, had a defined leadership structure and staff felt supported in their roles.

However, there were also areas of practice where the provider should make improvements:

• The practice should ensure that all staff who are required to chaperone patients receive the appropriate training.

• The practice should ensure that all non-clinical staff receive training in safeguarding vulnerable adults.

• The practice should ensure the oxygen cylinder kept on site is regularly checked to ensure it contains oxygen and can therefore be used in a medical emergency.

• The practice should ensure learning from significant events is disseminated to non-clinical staff.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice