Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Wollaton Park Medical Practice on 25 April 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 and near misses, and we saw evidence that learning was applied. Staff were actively encouraged to report significant events including positive ones.

• There was easy access to appointments for patients whose circumstances made them vulnerable, for example patients from the traveller community. They were assured of an appointment on the day when they presented to the practice without a booked appointment.

• Feedback from patients about their care was consistently positive. Data from the GP survey was consistently high and this included confidence in care provided by GPs, where 92% of patients surveyed said they had confidence and trust in the last GP they saw or spoke to.

• The practice planned and co-ordinated patient care with the wider multi-disciplinary team to plan and deliver effective and responsive care to keep vulnerable patients safe, particularly the end of life care patients.
• Suggestions for improvements were implemented and changes were made to the way it delivered services as a consequence of feedback from patients and from the patient participation group.
• The practice actively reviewed complaints for trends and how they were managed and responded to, and made improvements as a result.
• There was a clear vision which had quality and safety as its top priority. The strategy to deliver this vision had been produced with stakeholders and was regularly reviewed and discussed with staff.

• The practice had strong and visible clinical and managerial leadership and governance arrangements, and staff told us that they were well-supported and felt valued by the partners.

• The practice developed a bespokerecall system for patients with long term conditions which enabled them to view a patient’smultiple conditions in one summary and manage their problems in single appointments. This system improved compliance with appointments because patients did not need to make multiple appointments.

• The practice staff were responsive to the needs of the local community and often saw school age children from the neighbouring schools if they fell ill at school and assisted with medical emergencies.

However, the areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Ensure safe patient care by identifying risk and doing all that is possible to mitigate this by developing a system for the management of MHRA alerts in the practice so there is clear responsibility of actions and a log is kept of actions taken.

• Carry out health and safety assessments regularly.

• Ensure recruitment checks at the point of offering employment are robust and any risk assessments undertaken should record the actions taken to mitigate risks.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice