Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Heaton Norris Health Centre 1(Dr Marshall and partners) on 23 November 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• 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 staff and stakeholders and was regularly reviewed and discussed with staff.
• The practice had strong and visible clinical and managerial leadership and governance arrangements.
• 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.
• 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. The practice had a strong commitment to supporting staff training and development.
• Feedback from patients about their care was consistently and strongly positive. Patients described the GPs and staff as caring and professional.
• The practice worked closely with other organisations and with the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure they met people’s needs.
• The practice implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way it delivered services as a direct response to feedback from patients.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• The practice actively reviewed complaints and how they were managed and responded to, and made improvements as a result.
• Evidence was available that demonstrated the practice complied with the Duty of Candour requirement.

We saw some areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice nurse, working with the health visitors delivered a talk every six to eight weeks to new mums at the local Sure Start children’s centre to emphasise the importance and benefits of baby and young children’s immunisations and vaccinations. The practice uptake was comparable to the CCG.
• The practice had recognised that patients living locally lived in an area of high deprivation and that some patients were unable to buy food. To support their patients the practice had established working relationships with the local food banks to provide patients with food vouchers to use at the food banks. The practice provided this support discreetly, recognising the potential loss of dignity patients might feel.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Strengthen existing arrangements for the security of prescriptions to fully reflect the NHS Security of prescription forms guidance.
• Establish a rolling programme of regular clinical audit and re-audit.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice