Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

St James Medical Centre is a town centre practice providing primary care services to patients resident in Taunton. The practice has a patient population of approximately 13399.

We undertook a comprehensive announced inspection on 4 November 2014. Our inspection team was led by a Care Quality Commission (CQC) Lead Inspector and GP specialist advisor.

Before visiting, we reviewed a range of information we held about the practice and asked other organisations to share what they knew. This included the Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), NHS England and Healthwatch.

The overall rating for the service was good. Our key findings were as follows:

• Patients were able to get an appointment when they needed it.
• Staff were caring and treated patients with kindness and respect.
• Staff explained and involved patients in treatment decisions
• Patients were cared for in an environment which was clean and reflected good infection control practices.
• Patients were protected from the risks of unsafe medicine management procedures.
• The practice had the appropriate equipment, medicines and procedures to manage foreseeable patient emergencies.
• The practice met nationally recognised quality standards for improving patient care and maintaining quality.
• The practice had systems to identify, monitor and evaluate risks to patients.
• Patients were treated by suitably qualified staff.
• GPs and nursing staff followed national guidance in the care and treatment provided.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

• The practice also participated in schemes which promoted self-care for good health such as the diabetes education programme (DESMOND) and the use of telehealth systems.

However, there was an area of practice where the provider needs to make improvement.

The provider should:

• Ensure there are systematic processes in place to share learning from significant events and disseminate this amongst the all staff.
• Instigate a process to facilitate clinical audit cycles so that they are undertaken as a planned programme.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice