Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Mockett’s Wood Surgery on 26 February 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, effective, responsive, caring and well-led services. It was outstanding for providing services to older people and was good for providing services to people with long-term conditions, families, children and young people, working age people (including those recently retired and students) and for people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable. It was also good for providing services to people experiencing poor mental health (including dementia).

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. 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 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 a named GP and that urgent appointments were 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.

We saw an area of outstanding practice:

• The practice had developed an initiative for older patients over the age of 75 with a purpose of providing an integrated and joint working approach in multi-disciplinary care, to reduce unplanned / emergency hospital admissions. A ‘care co-ordinator’ had been employed to organise the care and treatment interventions for this patient group and was the single point of contact for patients, their carers and community health and social care professionals. The care co-ordinator organised and arranged interventions and support from community multi-disciplinary teams and clinical support from the GP when required.

Available data indicated that unplanned / emergency hospital admissions for the previous six months were one of the lowest compared to other practices in the area.

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

The provider SHOULD:

• follow the practice recruitment policy to ensure sufficient documented information is available in relation to the employment of staff – including information about references
• review the staff training requirements in relation to the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We spoke with 12 patients; this included eight active members of the newly formed Patient Participation Group (PPG), and with clinical and non-clinical staff.

Patients we spoke with were very positive about the practice. All of the patients said that they could get an appointment when they needed one. One person told us “I am so grateful for the walk in clinic on Mondays and Fridays, pity it’s not available every day.” Another said “Getting an appointment is easy; I have never had a problem. Plus we have a walk in clinic now too.”

Patients told us that the staff were friendly, helpful and compassionate. A patient told us “What I appreciate is that the reception staff always acknowledge me when I come in, even if they are busy.” Another said “My doctor has been a fantastic support to me and my family over the years.” Patients said that their care and treatment was explained to them by the clinical staff and that they could ask questions if there was anything that they did not understand.

There were good infection control practices in place. The practice was clean and tidy and people told us that it was always like this. A patient said “I have never seen the practice anything but spotless.” Another said “It’s got that clean smell.”

Processes around recruitment were not robust as personnel records were incomplete.This meant that the provider could not ensure that staff had been checked thoroughly to work with vulnerable people.

The practice had procedures in place for dealing with complaints, comments and suggestions.

We reviewed the information available to us about The Mockett's Wood Surgery on 29 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.