Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Oakwood Lane Medical Practice on 7 July 2015.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, effective responsive and caring services. It was outstanding for being well led. It was also outstanding for providing services for people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable and people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia). It was good for the other population groups.

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

• The practice had robust systems in place to safeguard patients from potential abuse. Staff were appropriately trained in safeguarding and one GP was the named GP for safeguarding children at the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). Learning from safeguarding board meetings and child protection reviews was disseminated widely within the practice.
• 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.
• The practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes, working with other local providers to share best practice. For example, the practice health champions worked with the local sports centre to deliver a twelve week programme of chair based exercises.
• 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 worked closely with other organisations and with the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure they meet people’s needs.
• 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 Forum group.
• 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. A business plan was in place, was monitored and regularly reviewed and discussed with all staff. High standards were promoted and owned by all practice staff with evidence of team working across all roles.

We saw two areas of outstanding practice including:

• The practice had invested in the co-production model of healthcare and trained a group of volunteer patients by a third sector organisation to become practice health champions. A designated area within the practice called ‘The Roost’ was used as a community hub for patient health champion activities. The champions had established a weekly crafting group to address social isolation, a weekly chair based exercise group, to help introduce people to exercise, and a weekly walking club. They had also opened a café within the area to be used as a drop in for various other activities they had planned.
• Staff at the practice continually reviewed access to appointments by analysing the number of telephone calls to the practice and appointment requests to predict call to plan staff rota requirements both to answer the telephone calls and also provide appointments for patients.

However there was an area of practice where the provider needs to make improvements, importantly the provider should:

• Ensure all staff who handle and manage complaints are trained to do so.  Ensure written complaint responses reflect guidance in the practice complaints policy.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Oakwood Lane Medical Practice on 25 January 2019 as part of our inspection programme.

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

• what we found when we inspected
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We have rated this practice as good for providing safe, effective, caring responsive and well-led services. This meant the practice were rated good for all population groups with an overall rating of good. The practice was previously inspected in July 2015 and were given an overall rating of good with a rating of outstanding for providing well-led services.

We found that:

• The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.
• Governance and performance management arrangements had been proactively reviewed and took account of current models of best practice.
• The practice was working with NHS Leeds Clinical Commissioning Group on a number of pilot schemes to improve services for patients.
• The practice gathered feedback from patients using various methods, including through practice health champions.
• The provider could demonstrate how they had involved the whole practice team during the recruitment and selection process to promote inclusive leadership within the practice.
• We saw evidence that the practice shared data and information proactively to drive and support decision making as well as system wide working and improvement.
• The practice had mapped demand over a number of years to ensure safe levels of staff were available to meet demand on any given day. The capacity and demand work undertaken was used as an example of best practice across NHS Leeds Clinical Commissioning Group. The data collected from this work was also used to inform demand for urgent primary care and the practice was able to quantify the increase in urgent care demand in GP over the winter and correlate this with patients presenting at Accident and Emergency Department.

We saw areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice had a clear vision which had been produced during the merger of two previous practices and was regularly reviewed and discussed with staff.
• There was a high level of constructive engagement with staff and a high level of staff satisfaction.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice