Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Drs Cronk Newton and Tan also known as Papworth Surgery on 8 March 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 to report incidents and near misses. Information about safety was recorded, monitored, and addressed. Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• 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.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the Duty of Candour.

We saw areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice was able to provide intra-ocular tests for glaucoma screening within the practice following the donation of equipment from a patient and the relevant GP training. The practice had undertaken 25 tests for patients in the previous year.

• The practice had a named nurse who undertook annual health reviews for patients with a learning disability and provided consistency of care by carrying out smears, doing blood tests and generally being a point of contact for patients with a learning disability and their families. Of the 20 patients on the practice learning disability register, 16 had received a face to face review of their care plans in the previous 12 months.The practice had access to a range of easy read health information including videos, health leaflets, support organisations and healthy food and exercises. The learning disability nurse used easy read books and picture learning material obtained from the local learning disabilities team.Additionally the practice diabetic lead nurse used these for healthy eating and exercise advice when reviewing learning disabilities patients with diabetes and the respiratory disease lead nurse when reviewing learning disability patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

• GPs provided telephone numbers and home visits for patients on palliative or end of life care at weekends and bank holidays. In addition GPs provided peer support to each other and nursing staff through daily meetings to review care and treatment.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Record verbal complaints in order to ensure shared learning.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice