Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr S Somerville & Partners on 20 July 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. All opportunities for learning from incidents were maximised.

• Feedback from patients about their care was consistently positive.

• The practice worked closely with other organisations and with the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure that they meet patients’ needs.

• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.

• The practice actively reviewed complaints and how they are 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 strategy to deliver this vision had been produced with stakeholders and was regularly reviewed and discussed with staff.
• The practice had strong and visible clinical and managerial leadership and governance arrangements. Staff felt supported by the management team.
• 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 practice had identified 507 patients as carers (4% of the practice list) and worked closely in conjunction with external support agencies to promote the work of carers and provide support and advice to carers.

We saw an area of outstanding practice:

• The practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes. For example, the practice had appointed a practice matron to lead a designated care quality team for managing elderly patients in the community and those patients with long-term conditions.

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

• Improve the system for ensuring patients receive the necessary monitoring before prescribing high risk medicines to ensure continuing patient safety, and to minimise potential risks.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice