Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Priory Gate Practice on 13 September 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• Patients’ needs were assessed and care delivered in line with current guidelines. Staff had the appropriate skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• Patients said they were treated with dignity, respect and compassion. Patients were involved with decisions about their care and treatment.
• Urgent same day patient appointments were available when needed. All patients we spoke with and those who completed comment cards before our inspection said they were always able to obtain same day appointments.
• Patients said GPs gave them enough time and treated them with dignity and respect.
• Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand. The practice received very few complaints from patients and reviewed complaints to ensure lessons were learned.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• There were clearly defined processes and procedures to ensure patients were safe and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events. They were fully reviewed at every staff meeting.

Areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Consistently record the outcome of medical safety alerts, whether or not they are relevant to the practice.

• Encourage patients to engage with national screening programmes for breast and bowel cancer. 

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

On the day of our inspection we spoke with nine patients, one doctor and three members of staff. One of the patients was a member of the patient participation group (PPG)

All patients we spoke with were satisfied with the appointment system and when necessary were given an appointment on the same day. Three patients told us they found it difficult to get through to the surgery by telephone at times. One told us: “If they are busy first thing, phone later in the morning and you can usually get through. If it’s an emergency, they will still see you that day.”

We saw that patients’ views and experiences were taken into account in the way the service was provided and that they were treated with dignity and respect. When patients received care or treatment they were asked for their consent and their wishes were listened to.

The practice is located on the first floor. As the building had been recently built, it is fully accessible for people with disabilities and there were disabled parking bays close to the entrance in the car park. One patient said: “I have limited mobility and the building is excellent. So much better than the one it replaced.”

We found the practice to be clean and well organised. Processes were in place to minimise the risk of infection. There were also processes in place for monitoring the quality of service provision. There was an established system for regularly obtaining opinions from patients about the standard of the service they received.