Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at ISSA Medical Centre on 5 August 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• 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.
• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events, although actions taken as a result of these events were not systematically reviewed.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed although references for new practice staff were not always sought, as per the practice’s recruitment policy.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• Protocols and policies for managing blank prescription forms were in place, however staff using loose prescription forms did not log them in and out and prescriptions were left in prescription printers overnight.
• 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 named GP and there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• The practice had good policies and procedures although these were not easily available to staff and there was no structured programme for their review.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs. Patients we spoke with praised the practice environment.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt 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 one area of outstanding practice:

• The practice had recognised the needs of Muslim patient families and had been the first practice in the area to work in partnership with the coroner and the Muslim burial committee. The practice had facilitated timely access to these services particularly out of working hours. This led to families being able to satisfy the needs of their religion and bury their relatives within appropriate timescales. This service was then rolled out to other practices in the area.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• The practice should consider that systems are put in place to check that actions identified by significant event reports are effective.
• The practice should minimise the risks that may be associated with the security of blank prescription forms.
• The practice should follow its recruitment policy and obtain references for all new staff employed.
• The practice should make policies and procedures easily available to all staff and review them systematically.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Issa Medical Centre operates from purpose built premises opened in 2009. It has grown rapidly since then adding approximately 1000 patients each year since opening. The practice currently serves over 12,600 patients and continues to grow.

Issa Medical centre is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), as responsible for providing primary care, which includes: access to GPs, family planning, maternity and midwifery services, treatment for disease, surgical procedures, disorder and injury and diagnostic and screening services.

The medical centre offers NHS care and is a teaching practice for GPs. Issa Medical Centre has two GP trainees.

Patients told us that they were very satisfied with the services they received and they told us that the clinical staff working at the medical centre were all held in high regard by the wider community.

The practice works collaboratively with other health and social care providers locally in order to offer a ‘joined up’ service to patients.

The practice evidenced its efforts to be responsive to a broad community by the way in which it gave support to the patients participation group (PPG).

The patients speak a number of languages and clinical healthcare professional staff in addition to speaking English, were fluent in, Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu and Gujarati. There were systems in place to access translation services for other languages as necessary.

The values and visions of the practice were clearly demonstrated and the patients said that they enjoyed a respectful and compassionate service delivered by caring staff who were mindful of a wide range of cultural needs of patients.