Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at St Hilary Group Practice on 6 December. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• The practice is situated in a purpose built health centre. The practice was clean and had good facilities including disabled access, translation services and a hearing loop.

• There were systems in place to mitigate safety risks including analysing significant events and safeguarding.

• The practice was aware of and had systems in place to ensure compliance with the requirements of the duty of candour. (The duty of candour is a set of specific legal requirements that providers of services must follow when things go wrong with care and treatment).

• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered in line with current legislation.

• 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. The practice sought patient views about improvements that could be made to the service including having a patient participation group and acted, where possible, on feedback.

Staff told us they felt valued, worked well together as a team and all felt supported to carry out their roles.

There was an outstanding element of practice including:-

• There were daily lunch time meetings for all GPs and nursing staff including the healthcare assistant to discuss patient cases and anything that had occurred during the day. Minutes for these meetings were available to all clinicians.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Our inspection of 25th September 2013 found that improvements were needed to the staff recruitment procedure and practices to ensure patients received care and treatment from staff who were suitable for their role. We carried out this visit to ensure these improvements had been made. We found that appropriate action had been taken.

We spoke with five patients who told us they were generally satisfied with the service provided. They told us:

“The service provided is good.”

“It’s lovely here. It’s really very good.”

“I am happy with the service I receive.”

They said they had time to discuss their concerns during the consultation and that treatment was explained to them.

We found that patients were respected and involved in the service provided to them. There were practices in place to ensure patients experienced care and treatment that met their needs.

We found there were safeguards in place to ensure children and vulnerable adults were protected from abuse.

We found that there were systems in place to assess and monitor the quality of the service and to ensure good standards were maintained.

We found that improvements were needed to the recruitment procedure and practices to ensure patients received care and treatment from staff who were suitable for their role.