Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Archwood Medical Practice on 15 June 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 a system in place for reporting, recording and responding to significant events.
• Risks to patients were 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 were complimentary about the quality of service they received but some said that they found it difficult getting through to the practice by telephone. The practice was aware of this, and had been in consultation with the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) for a lengthy period of time. The practice had just received confirmation that a new call routing telephone system was going to be installed.
• Patients told us they usually got an appointment quickly. The practice also offered a GP call back service. Urgent appointments were available the same day.

• 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. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns. The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour
• 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 practice business plan was comprehensive and this was supported with action plans to improve and develop the service provided. This included improving team support systems with more team meetings and staff appraisal.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

• Systems to monitor, track and risk assess the progress of most aspects of service delivery were recorded on spreadsheet ‘trackers’. These enabled staff to quickly identify progress in mitigating risks, achieving specific targets and responding to shortfalls in service delivery to the benefit of patients. Examples included: the monitoring of two week referrals to secondary care to ensure they were responded to and the monitoring of patients discharged from hospital who had a practice care plan in place so that telephone checks could be made to the patients to offer additional support if required.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Implement the planned programme of weekly clinical meetings.
• Implement the planned programme of staff appraisal.
• Continue to recruit patients to the patient reference group and consult with them as planned.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice