Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at St George’s Medical Centre on 14 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. Safety alerts were received and acted upon.
• 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.
• Staff had been trained to deal with medical emergencies and emergency medicines and equipment were available.
• Infection control procedures were in place.
• 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 could make appointments easily and urgent appointments were available the same day for all children and those patients who needed them.
• 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.
• Staff were supervised, felt involved and worked as a team.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Review the system for reporting out of range drug fridge temperatures to include documenting the reason and risk assessments when storage is deemed safe.

• Review the uniform policy for clinical staff to include suitable attire that promotes infection prevention and control.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We found that staff were appropriately assessed to carry out their roles safely and effectively in line with best practice. We found that the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) policy and recruitment procedures had been revised and were reflective of current national guidance.

We also found evidence that the practice had undertaken DBS checks on its entire staff and at the level appropriate to their role. Clinical staff were checked regularly to ensure they had current registration to work in the role for which they were employed.

We found that patients were satisfied with the service provided at this practice. Comments made included:

“I cannot fault it, it is excellent. I have had a very good experience of care”,

“It’s excellent, they have done more than expected of them in the way of care, treatment and referrals”,

“It’s very, very good. They are all very friendly and attentive”.

We found that there were suitable systems in place to gain consent from the patients. Staff who obtained consent were able to describe the consent process for both formal and informal consent. Staff demonstrated knowledge and understanding of the safeguarding of vulnerable adults and children.

We found that patients care and treatment was assessed, planned and delivered in order to meet their needs. Care and treatment plans were documented and reviewed and patients were fully informed and involved in their care or treatment.

We found that improvements were needed to the systems in place to assess the suitability of staff for their role and to ensure specified information was available in respect of people employed.

We found the provider had effective systems in place for monitoring the quality of services. There was an active Patient Participation Group (PPG). They participated in the quality assurance programme. Complaints, incidents and significant events were reviewed and they participated in the QOF programme. QOF is a system for the performance management of GPs intended to improve the quality of general practice and reward good practice in surgeries.