Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Pendeen Surgery on 7 June 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• There were robust systems in place to monitor and maintain safety in the practice.
• Staff understood their responsibilities to raise concerns and to report incidents and near misses. Incidents were viewed as opportunities for learning and improving patient care.
• The practice was visibly clean and hygienic. There were arrangements for assessing and mitigating the risks from healthcare associated infections.

• Patients’ needs were assessed and their care was delivered in line with best practice guidance.
• The practice team was well trained and had skills and experience in a range of health conditions.
• Feedback from patients about their care was consistently positive. Patients said that GPs listened to them and that they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect. Patients felt that they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• The system for recording and learning from significant events was well embedded and robust.
• The system for undertaking regular audits was robust. The practice routinely presented the findings at the educational meetings to drive improvement in patient care.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand. The practice responded to complaints in an appropriate and timely manner. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
• Patients told us that it was easy to make an appointment with a named GP and that there was continuity of care. Urgent appointments were available the same day.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• The practice had an area set aside for use by children, which contained books and toys.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management.
• The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients and used the feedback to improve services to patients.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the Duty of Candour.

We saw two areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice had proactively engaged with a manager and the welfare officer of a local farm where many seasonal workers from overseas were employed in order to facilitate access to the practice services. This was a practice led initiative which resulted in the seasonal workers being accompanied at appointments by a person who could translate for them.
• The system in place for managing and monitoring significant events was extremely robust. The summary details were logged on a spreadsheet, which contained hyperlinks to the full discussion and decision process. This system originated in 2005 and had been adopted by other practices.

The area where the provider should make improvement is:

• Review the arrangements for checking on any uncollected prescriptions.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We reviewed the information available to us about Pendeen Surgery on 5 June 2019. We did not find evidence of significant changes to the quality of service being provided since the last inspection. As a result, we decided not to inspect the surgery at this time. We will continue to monitor this information about this service throughout the year and may inspect the surgery when we see evidence of potential changes.