Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Greenway Community Practice

On 26 January 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.

• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.

• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.

• Feedback from patients about their care was consistently and strongly positive.

• 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.

• 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, a sign had been added at the reception desk to inform patients to respect patient’s privacy and to wait to be called to the desk.

• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment; patients were encouraged to book with their personal GP for continuity of care.

• The practice offered teenage health checks for young patients on their fourteenth birthday.

• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.

• The practice had the lowest patient to GP ratio in the Clinical Commissioning Group area.GPs worked with personal patient lists, patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with their GP; 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.

• Two staff members were Dementia Friends.

• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management.

  We saw one area of outstanding practice:

• One of the practice secretary’s had dedicated telephone appointments and provided assistance for patients to navigate through the secondary healthcare system.

The area where the provider should make improvement are:

• The practice must ensure they undertake all the required checks for personnel employed to carry on the regulated activities.

• The provider should ensure that the protocols for medicine management are maintained.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice