Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Blithehale Medical Centre on 07 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.
• 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.
• 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 found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• 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.
• The provider had recognised shortfalls in its recruitment records and infection control systems and was addressing these as part of a review of its governance systems.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

• The practice ran an after school club with a local primary school promoting healthy lifestyles. The practice had recently won an innovation grant to build on this work and develop a health literacy curriculum with the school. The World Health Organisation defines health literacy as 'the personal characteristics and social resources needed for individuals and communities to access, understand, appraise and use information and services to make decisions about health’.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Put arrangements in place to audit the practice’s infection prevention and control systems and processes on an annual basis.
• Put systems in place to make available all information required in respect of each person employed by the service.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We reviewed the information available to us about The Blithehale Medical Centre on 30 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.