Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Lodge Surgery on 5 March 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led services. It was also good for providing services for older people, people with long term conditions, families with young children, working age people, those whose circumstances make them vulnerable and those patients suffering with mental health problems.

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’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance.
• 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.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand.
• The practice had a clear vision which had quality and safety as its top priority. High standards were promoted and owned by all practice staff with evidence of team working across all roles.
• Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.

However, there were also areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements. The provider should:

• Ensure a record of the risk assessment is kept on file for those staff that are assessed as not needing a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check
• Keep a record of any health and safety risk assessments related to the buildings and the environment

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We found both the surgeries we visited, The Lodge and Highfield to be welcoming with polite, friendly staff.

Information was displayed for people using both surgeries. This included health promotion, access to support services and information about each surgery within the practice. Appointments could be made for both surgeries in person, by telephone, or via the internet using the practice's website.

We spoke with eight people during our inspection, who all spoke highly of services provided to them. We also spoke with staff who said they enjoyed working in the practice. One told us, "We really work as a team here. I look forward to coming to work."

People's needs were assessed and care and treatment was planned and delivered in line with their individual wishes. One person said, "It’s good that I can make an appointment at either surgery to suit me." Another told us, "Everyone here is very professional. I give it top marks.”

Although both premises and the surgeries were very clean, there was no clear designated infection control lead, no one had received infection control training and cleaning protocols were not in place.

We saw that there was a system to ensure repeat prescriptions were available promptly. However, we found some medicines kept at the practice that were not stored safely.

Staff were supported through a variety of means including meetings and appraisals.

The practice had an electronic records system, which was used by all staff. Paper records were stored in a way that ensured that they were kept confidential.