We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Priory Medical Centre on 10 May 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• Staff knew how to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. Significant events were thoroughly investigated, action was taken and lessons learned were shared with staff to improve safety in the practice.
• The practice manager was a director for a federation of 35 practices, and this had helped the practice to network and provide primary care at scale.
• Feedback from patients about their care was very positive.
• The practice worked closely with other organisations and with the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure that they met patients’ needs.
• The practice implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way it delivered services as a consequence of feedback from patients and from the patient participation group.
• The practice’s facilities were of a good standard and it was properly equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• The practice had a transparent approach to dealing with errors. The practice took positive actions to improve processes and communicated appropriately with patients.
• The practice had a clear vision to deliver accessible and cohesive patient centred care in a supportive town centre environment that continually strives to improve.
• Governance and performance management arrangements had been proactively reviewed and took account of current models of best practice.
• The practice also had two asthma nurses and had recently participated in a project which involved a specialist nurse running clinics at the practice using Optimising the Review and Control in Asthma (ORCA).
• The practice had participated in the Triumvirate Leadership Programme for General Practice in 2015. This was a leadership course designed to strengthen and improve practices through the shared leadership of GPs, practice managers and practice nurses. The practice told us this experience had improved their way of working.
• The practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes, working with other local providers to share best practice.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Monitor the newly introduced system to monitor the use of prescription stationery to ensure it is effective.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We spoke with one GP, two practice nurses, three reception staff and three healthcare professionals who worked with the practice. We also spoke with seven patients from the practice. One patient told us, ‘‘I recently joined the practice and it was easy to register; staff have been really helpful.’’

We found that good communication and referral pathways existed between the medical practice and other healthcare professionals. Patients confirmed they had been well supported throughout the referral process. Patients told us they had been involved in their care and had sufficient information to enable them to make decisions.

We saw effective processes were in place for safeguarding patients and that information was available for staff and patients should they need to raise any concerns.

The provider identified non-compliance in relation to cleanliness and infection control at registration. We saw that the provider had made some progress in areas identified as non-compliant.