This practice is rated as Good overall.

The key questions at this inspection are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? - Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at “Medical Centre” on 9 August 2018 as part of our inspection programme.

This location was formed when one of the GP partners left the previously registered partnership at this location.

At this inspection we found:

• The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.
• There were systems in place for sharing learning from incidents with all relevant staff; and for ensuring this learning improved safety.
• The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients fed back that they could access appointments in a way and at a time that suited them.
• Leadership, practice management and governance arrangements were used to drive and improve the delivery of high quality person-centred care.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Take action to ensure that appropriate Infection Prevention and Control protocols are in place regarding six monthly replacement of disposable curtains, eye protection for ear irrigation procedures and frequency of checks of cleaned surfaces.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

The practice provided a weekday walk in appointment service for routine and emergency appointments, in addition to scheduled and telephone appointments being available throughout the day and bookable up to eight weeks in advance. Patients were also able to access a local HUB network providing weekday evening and all day weekend appointments.

Patients spoke positively about appointments access - in particular the walk in facility - and we noted that the practice’s GP national patient survey satisfaction scores were significantly above local and national averages on questions relating to opening hours, ease of making an appointment and phone access. For example, 97% of respondents reported that it was easy to get through to the practice by phone and 82% responded positively when asked about their overall experience of making an appointment.

The lead GP spoke positively about how patients’ timely access to care and treatment also contributed to the practice’s low unplanned hospital admissions rate which we noted was the third lowest of the 60 practices in the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) area. CCG data also highlighted that the cost to the NHS of the practice’s patients attending hospital emergency departments was the lowest of its cohort of five local practices.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGPChief Inspector of General Practice

Please refer to the detailed report and the evidence tables for further information.