Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Medical Centre on 17 November 2014.

Overall the practice is rated as good.

We found the practice to be good for providing safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led services for all the six population groups we inspected.

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

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. Information about safety was recorded, monitored, appropriately reviewed and addressed.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.
• 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.
• Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with the GP or nurse with urgent appointments available the same day.
• The practice had good facilities to meet patient needs and was well equipped to treat patients.
• 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.

However, there were also areas of practice where the provider should make improvements.

The provider should:

• Ensure that the practice policy relating to employment and disciplinary of staff is implemented consistently for all staff.
• Ensure clinical meeting minutes contain sufficient detail of discussion held so that it is clear what action is required and by which individual as well as the resulting outcomes for patient care.
• Ensure a central risk log is held to ensure all risks are reviewed in a timely way – for example yearly infection control audits to protect people from the risk of infection.
• Ensure that the vision and values are clearly recorded and accessible to both staff and patients.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice