Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Newtown Health Centre on 23 June 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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.

• The practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes, working with other local providers to share best practice. For example the practice took part in a CCG funded project to offer individualised care plans to the practices top 50 patients who either attended accident and emergency (A&E) frequently or had high unplanned hospital admissions.

• The practice was trying to improve its dementia diagnosis through the use of an iPad with bespoke software for memory testing.

• Feedback from patients about their care was consistently positive.

• The practice implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way it delivered services as a consequence of feedback from patients and from the patient participation group. For example the appointment system was being reviewed after consultation with patients and staff. The proposals were being taken to the PPG for approval.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• The practice actively reviewed complaints and how they were managed and responded to, and made improvements as a result.
• The practice had a clear vision which had quality and safety as its top priority.
• The practice had strong and visible clinical and managerial leadership and governance arrangements.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

• The practice took part in a CCG funded project to offer individualised care plans to the practices top 50 high cost patients who either attended accident and emergency (A&E) frequently or had high unplanned hospital admissions. Data we looked at showed that the practice had significantly reduced admissions to secondary care for these patients.

However there were areas of practice where the provider should make improvements:

• Consider how to further identify the number of carers registered at the practice in order to offer further support and guidance.

• Continue to monitor patient survey results and patient feedback following implementation of new appointment systems.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Newtown Health Centre serves the local general community and provides a service to a densely populated and culturally diverse area of Birmingham. 

Newtown Health Centre was safe. There were appropriate safeguarding procedures and an open and transparent culture among staff.  Medicines were managed safely, the practice was clean and hygienic and there were arrangements in place to respond to emergencies.  

The practice was effective and had procedures in place that ensured care and treatment was delivered in line with appropriate standards. The practice measured its effectiveness through clinical audit except that in most case the clinical audits had not been reviewed. Staff were trained to work effectively and there were good links with other providers in the area. 

The practice was caring, where patients were treated with dignity, respect and compassion. Patients spoke very positively of their experiences and of the care and compassion offered by the staff. Patients were involved in their treatment planning.

The practice was responsive to people’s needs and met the needs of specific patient groups within its local population such as those with long term conditions, older people, younger people and families. The practice had an accessible appointments system and was also accessible to people with limited mobility or to people whose first language was not English.

The practice was well led. There was strong and visible leadership except that there was no clear practice development strategy or vision that was shared with staff.  There were effective governance procedures in place and a system of using information from patients and from records to monitor the effectiveness of the practice. There was an active patient participation group in place.

Please note that when referring to information throughout this report, for example any reference to the Quality and Outcomes Framework data, this relates to the most recent information available to the CQC at that time.