Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Park Medical Practice on 18 November 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 comprehensively and systematically 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.
• An ethos of patient centred care was well established throughout the practice’s work force. Staff had been proactive in setting up regular ‘health walks’ in the local park to promote a healthy lifestyle for patients and offer social opportunities for patients who may otherwise be isolated.
• 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. We saw that the practice took a transparent approach to the management of complaints in order to maximise learning opportunities.
• Patients said they mostly found it easy to make an appointment with a GP, 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 was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.

We saw three areas of outstanding practice:

• The newly appointed clinical nurse specialist had identified and reviewed 185 patients at risk of having poorly controlled diabetes and offered lifestyle advice and changes to medication as appropriate. A total of 62 of these patients had already been recalled and attended for a further review following these changes being implemented. Of these 62, 59 had been found to have improved control of their condition.

• We saw that the practice routinely wrote to care homes in its catchment area on a quarterly basis to establish whether any of their patients had deprivation of liberties safeguards in place.

• Practice staff had set up a weekly “health walk” in the local park each Thursday morning, and invited patients to attend. This promoted a healthy lifestyle as well as providing social interaction and networking opportunities for patients who otherwise may be isolated.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• The planned training should be undertaken to ensure health care assistants are trained to an appropriate level in child safeguarding in line with recognised guidance. The planned appraisals for this group of staff should also be completed.

• Consider the simplification of documents available to staff for the management of incoming mail in order to further mitigate the risk of the GPs not having sight of correspondence they need to see.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice