Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Park Green Surgery on 20 May 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. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their 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.
• 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. The duty of candour is a regulation that requires providers to be open and transparent in their communication with patients about errors, mistakes and incidents.
• Processes to monitor and audit how staff acted on safeguarding alerts were robust and embedded into practice, with dedicated and consistent multidisciplinary input.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Make the complaints process more visible and accessible in patient areas.
• Ensure the patient participation group is made available to all patients.

We saw areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice used patient feedback to make the service more accessible, such as training new doctors in the use of the hearing loop system and training staff in deafness awareness.
• Staff worked proactively within innovative local partnerships to provide an extensive range of additional services to people with specific needs, including patients recovering from drug abuse and young people who needed sexual health services. This meant vulnerable patients with complex needs had rapid access to care and treatment and helped to reduce pressure on other services.
• The practice sought accreditation of national bodies to benchmark and improve practice, such as the Customer Service Excellence award and Investors in People status. Staff used their learning from the accreditation process to improve patient service and care at all points of contact, such as reception and in clinical areas.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice