Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We inspected Hill Barton Surgery on 7th July, 2015 as part of our comprehensive inspection programme.

We have rated the practice overall as providing a good service. Specifically we found the practice to be good for providing responsive, safe, effective, caring and well led services. It was good for providing services for all the population groups, older people, families, children and young people, people with long term conditions people in vulnerable circumstances, people experiencing poor mental health and people who are working age or recently retired.

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

• 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.

• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment. Information was provided to help patients understand the care available to them.

• There were arrangements in place to respond to the protection of children and vulnerable adults and to respond to any significant events affecting patients’ well-being.

• The practice worked well with other health care services to enable a multi-disciplinary approach in meeting the health care needs of patients receiving a service from the practice.

• The practice managed complaints well and took them seriously. Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand.

• There was a clear management structure with approachable leadership. Staff were supported and had opportunities for developing their skills, were well supported and had good training opportunities.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs. Patients commented how helpful the staff were in trying really hard to get them a convenient appointment.
• The practice had a vision and informal set of values which were understood by staff. There were clear clinical governance systems and a clear leadership structure in place.

However there were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements

Importantly the provider should:

• Introduce a system for Nurse meetings to be more formal and minutes taken with actions agreed.
• Introduce a system to ensure policies are reviewed and updated.
• Give consideration to improving the disabled toilet facilities.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice