Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Ambrose Avenue Group Practice on 16 February 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• Patients were protected from abuse and avoidable harm as staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses.

• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed. Information about safety was monitored, appropriately reviewed and addressed. Learning from incidents was cascaded to staff.

• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. There were multi-disciplinary team discussions to ensure patients’ care and treatment was coordinated.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion and dignity 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 could make an appointment with a named GP and that there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• The premises were purpose built and maintained to an acceptable standard throughout the clinical areas. Access for disabled people was in place including parking for the disabled and washroom facilities.
• The practice implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way it delivered services as a consequence of feedback from patients and from the patient participation group.
• There was a leadership structure and staff had lead roles in the delivery of services.Staff were appropriately qualified and competent to carry out their roles safely and effectively in line with best practice. Staff were supported and received satisfactory supervision and appraisal and were encouraged to undertake their continual professional development.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• The practice should have a clear vision and strategy to deliver ongoing high quality care and promote good outcomes for patients. Staff should be clear about the vision and their responsibilities in relation to this.

• There should be a formal policy and arrangements in place to ensure that MHRA medicine alerts are always actioned in a timely manner.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We inspected Ambrose Group Practice on 28 November 2013. We found the practice staff in the reception area to be courteous and welcoming.

There was a varied selection of information on the notice boards and in the waiting room for the benefit of the patients. The information included notices about the practice, health promotion, safeguarding and other support services.

We received comments from ten people who visited the practice on the day of inspection. One person told us: "The doctor made me aware of treatment options, I’m very happy with the service."

We saw that staff spoke politely to people and consultations were carried out in private treatment rooms.

The doctors and nurses told us how they involved people in their care. We saw the surgery had appropriate medicines management arrangements in place.

We spoke with four members of staff about the support they received and saw records of appraisals, regular training, staff meetings, and staff development.

We were shown the audits completed by the practice which monitored the quality of service people received.