Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

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

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

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
• Risk management was comprehensive, well embedded and recognised as the responsibility of all staff.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• Data from the GP survey and the practice’s own internal survey was consistently high. This included access to appointments and the care they received. Patient feedback demonstrated that the practice was performing higher than average in a number of areas. In particular, where patients were able to see their preferred GP the practice scored 14% higher than the local average and 22% higher than the national average.
• The practice’s clinical and public health performance in relation to QOF was consistently high, with many areas scoring higher than the local and national areas. This meant that patients with long term conditions were being monitored appropriately.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs. Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand

• The practice had a clear vision which had quality and safety as its top priority.
• Feedback from patients was strongly positive and general satisfaction was high.
• 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. For example they had implemented a privacy screen at the reception desk and had made changes to parking to make it easier for patients to park. Members of the patient participation group told us they felt valued by the practice and that the practice as a whole was proactive about gaining patient’s views.
• Data showed that the practice was performing highly when compared to practices nationally and in the Clinical Commissioning Group having achieved 100% in many of the QOF clinical domain indicator groups. Data showed that performance was higher than average for many long-term conditions. More patients with mental ill health had a comprehensive care plan documented in their record than the local average.
• The practice was involved in research trials and studies, the partners had written research publications and we saw that findings from audits had been used to improve services.
• Data from the National GP Patient Survey showed patients rated the practice higher than others for almost all aspects of care.

We saw the following areas of outstanding practice;

• The practice had both evening and weekend extended access appointments available for patients who were working during the day.
• Care for patients with long term conditions was consistently high and the practice had consistently achieved high QOF scores. Specific initiatives to support patients with long term conditions included customising templates to record review information, moving chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) reviews to the summer so that patients had standby treatment in advance of the winter months and running a virtual consultant led diabetic clinic for patients with poor control.
• There was a culture of research, teaching and the use of evidence-based practice to improve the quality of care for patients.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice