Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Pendle View Medical Centre on 12th January 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, appropriately reviewed 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 generally received training appropriate to their roles and 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.

• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.

• Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment but some told us they could not always get an appointment with their named GP.The practice had recognised this issue and had taken action to ensure continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.

• 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.

We saw two areas of outstanding practice:

• In October 2015 the practice achieved the Royal College of General Practitioners Quality Practice Award.The Quality Practice Award is a standards based quality accreditation process designed to improve patient care by encouraging and supporting practices to deliver the very highest quality care to their patients.

• The practice had developed an information leaflet that used pictures to support the completion of annual health checks and care planning.This enabled those with learning difficulties to be fully involved in their own care.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Ensure the need for additional role specific training is assessed for individuals allocated lead responsibility for infection prevention and control.

• Take action to improve patient awareness and understanding of Out of Hours services.

• Assess the risks associated to the storage of clinical waste and ensure an asbestos risk assessment is completed for the practice building.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice