Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Great Staughton Surgery on 16 January 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good. They are rated as outstanding for providing services to people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. Information about safety was recorded, monitored, appropriately reviewed and addressed.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• Feedback from patients about their care was consistently positive. Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and that they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment. Data from the National GP Patient Survey published in July 2016 showed that patients rated the practice higher than others for all areas of care. For example, 97% of patients said that the last GP they saw or spoke to was good at treating them with care and concern, in comparison to a local and national average of 85%.
• 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 GP and that there was continuity of care. Data from the National GP Patient Survey published in July 2016 showed that 100% of patients surveyed found it easy to get through to the practice by phone.
• 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 well 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 several areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice had created specialist ‘bereavement packs’ to give to patients who had experienced a recent bereavement. These included practical information and guidance on who to contact for emotional support. This had been shared with other practices in the area who had commenced the same service.
• Teenagers were invited for a formal review when they were 16 to complete their immunisation schedule and as an opportunity to provide health promotion information, such as diet, exercise, substance misuse and sexual health.
• The practice recognised the lack of public transport for patients to get to the practice, and had organised a volunteer led transport scheme. We received positive feedback about this service. The success of this service and the improvement it made to access was also reflected in national and local benchmarking figures, which showed that the practice had one of the lowest rates in the country for both emergency admissions to hospital and accident and emergency attendances, despite caring for a largely older population in a rural setting.

However, the provider should:

• Maximise the functionality of the computer system in order to consistently code patient groups and produce accurate performance data.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice