Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Newbury Street Practice on 12 October 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. GPs and practice nurses had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• 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.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• The practice had maintained effective delivery of services during an unprecedented increase of 3,800 patients in early 2016. Staffing resources had been increased and service delivery systems amended to manage the sharp increase in regietered patient numbers.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.
• The practice had a system in place to ensure immunisations for patients were given in a timely manner and appropriately. The system enhanced advice already available about national immunisation programmes.
• The practice used a range of innovative and comprehensive treatment prompts that covered a wide range of diseases and health problems. These enhanced nationally available treatment protocols and offered patients advice on self management of their health conditions.

• 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. However, the practice had not sought patient feedback on several aspects of the care delivered since publication of the national patient survey in July 2016. Patient feedback relating to the availability of appointments had been acted upon with a revised appointment system introduced.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Ensure arrangements are made to secure the clinical waste bin to reduce the risk of this being moved or tampered with.

• Ensure the practice maintains a training schedule with a view to ensure the training needs of staff is monitored through practice meetings.

• Review service provision in response to patient feedback. Patients had rated the practice lower than others for several aspects of the care and treatment received from GPs.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

During our visit to Newbury Street Practice we met with one of the GP partners and with the practice manager. We spoke with seven patients, a member of the patient participation group and with five members of staff.

Patients were offered appointment options and various means to book their appointments. A patient we spoke with said "getting appointments here is brilliant. I rang at 8 am this morning and was seen by 10".

Patients received care and treatment that took account of their safety. One patient said "I’ve got a few allergies and they [the doctor] always makes a thorough check before prescribing me any medicines".

The risk of infection was reduced because current guidance was followed. One of the patients we spoke with described the premises as "spotless".

Staff received training and support appropriate to their roles and responsibilities. We saw that there was a system in place for annual review of clinical competencies of practice nurses and care support staff.

The practice had a system in place to seek and act upon patients views. There was an active Patient Participation Group and annual patient satisfaction surveys were undertaken.

We reviewed the information available to us about Newbury Street Practice on 6 June 2019. We did not find evidence of significant changes to the quality of service being provided since the last inspection. As a result, we decided not to inspect the surgery at this time. We will continue to monitor this information about this service throughout the year and may inspect the surgery when we see evidence of potential changes.