Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Sandgate Road on 14 January 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing well-led, effective and caring services. It was outstanding for providing responsive services. It was also outstanding for providing services for people with long-term conditions. It was good for providing services for the care to older people, families, children and young people, working age people (including those recently retired and students) and people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable.

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

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.
• The practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes, working with other local providers to share best practice. For example, the practice is one of eight practices in the South Kent Coast Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to be awarded the Prime Minister’s Challenge Fund allowing all the eight local practices in the Folkestone area to host primary care services, seven days a week, and an urgent home visit service outside of core practice hours.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment. Information was provided to help patients understand the care available to them.

• 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 (PPG).

• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs. Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand
• The practice had a clear vision which had quality and safety as its top priority. A business plan was in place, was monitored and regularly reviewed and discussed with all staff. High standards were promoted and owned by all practice staff with evidence of team working across all roles.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

• The practice through the work of one GP continues to lead on the introduction of the Pro-Active Care Project into Shepway. Some patients from the practice have already benefitted from this project, which seeks to help patients manage their long term chronic health problems themselves and improve their quality of life. This is achieved through a twelve week programme which seeks to address all aspects of a patient’s lifestyle with a view to tackling underlying issues as well as the medical condition itself.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We reviewed the information available to us about Sandgate Road on 8 May 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.