Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Seascale Health Centre on 28 July 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 report incidents and near misses, and the system for doing so was regularly reviewed by all staff. 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 practiceFeedback from patients about their care was consistently and strongly positive.
• The practice worked closely with other organisations and with the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure that they meet patients’ needs. For example, external specialists were regularly invited to the practice to appraise their systems and offer ideas for improvement.
• The practice implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way they delivered services as a consequence of feedback from patients and from the patient participation group (PPG). For example, after consultation with the PPG, letters inviting patients to review included goals that patients could set themselves and then discuss with the nurse or GP
• 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. The strategy to deliver this vision had been produced with stakeholders and was regularly reviewed and discussed with staff.

We saw some areas of outstanding practice:

• The leadership and governance at the practice had allowed them to maintain their objective of offering high quality care despite the number of GPs at the practice reducing. The practice had introduced new models of leadership to help meet the challenge of recruiting in a remote rural area.
• The practice maintained a “weekly patient review” tool which gave them an at-a-glance overview of all the contacts any given patient had had with the practice or secondary care providers (such as out-of-hours providers) within a given timeframe. Data had been collected for the past six years and was updated weekly. All members of the practice and some of the allied healthcare team, such as health visitors, could add to the tool. It had been used to coordinate and manage the care of patients, such as those with long-term conditions, as well as provide evidence for safeguarding vulnerable adults and children.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• The disposal records of medicines should include the signatures of the two people undertaking the disposal.
• The location of the prescriptions awaiting collection at the branch surgery should be reviewed to ensure patient confidentiality is not breached.
• Staff should complete child safeguarding training to a level relevant to their role.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Seascale Health Centre is a GP practice, the main branch surgery is in the village of Seascale. There is a branch surgery in Bootle Village 14 miles south of Seascale. The practice serves a rural community. Bothsurgeries are dispensing practices. During our inspection we visited both sites.

The patients we spoke with were very complimentary of the service and we received excellent feedback from the comment cards which were left for patients to complete during our inspection. Patient views were sought on a recent change in the way the appointment system was run.

We found that the service had a clear and transparent leadership structure which did not prevent people from feeling included and valued. The practice invested time supporting training and ensuring the care provided was not just good but consistent, enduring and safe.