Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

Hammersmith Surgery provides primary medical services to approximately 9,400 patients in the Bridge Road area of Hammersmith in West London. This is the only location operated by this provider.

We visited the practice on 2 October 2014 and carried out a comprehensive inspection of the services provided.

We rated the practice as ‘Good’ for the service being safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led. We rated the practice ‘Good’ 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).

Our key findings were as follows:

• There were arrangements in place to ensure patients were kept safe.
• 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 was well-led, had a defined leadership structure and staff felt supported in their roles.
• Pre-bookable Saturday morning appointments were available for patients who may have difficulty attending during weekday opening hours.
• The practice conducted 100% peer review of all referrals made to secondary care.

We saw an area of outstanding practice:

• Community Matron employed part time by the practice who provided support and management of patients with complex needs and the frail elderly. Since commencement of the role in July 2014 records showed that 3.7% of the practice population had a care plan in place. This was almost double the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) target of 2%.

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

• The practice should produce a written mission statement to be shared with members of the public.
• The practice should review the publically accessed practice information leaflets to ensure information is consistent.
• The practice should review policies to ensure the most up to date contact details of external organisations are recorded.
• The practice should consider maintaining mandatory training records for the GP’s.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice