Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Queensway Medical Centre on 20 June 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• 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. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
• Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment and there was 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.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.

We saw areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice lead on a local initiative and was the pilot project to co-ordinate primary care for care home patients. This pilot was rolled out across the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) in November 2015. According to figures supplied by the pilot the total number of non elective hospital admissions in the same six month period had reduced by 30%. The practice was now involved in the second stage of the project which aimed to provide a similar service to house-bound patients.

• The practice employed a practice matron to improve the identification of and holistic anticipatory care and care planning for vulnerable housebound patients in an effort to continue to reduce avoidable hospital admissions.

• A new practice staffing structure had been developed by the practice to offer more appointments to patients, when GP recruitment had been problematic . The practice had reviewed and developed existing staff skills and employed new staff to provide a clinical team that could provide best patient care. This included a clinical practitioner from a paramedic background who saw patients with acute health problems. This increased the availability of appointments for patients with all clinicians

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Implement processes for the checking of single use medical consumables to ensure they are in date.

• Implement systems to update policies which also reflect current guidance

• Implement more comprehensive risk management procedures

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice