Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr Castle and Partners also known as Sole Bay Health Centre on 24 November 2015. Overall the practice is rated as outstanding.

Specifically, we found the practice to be outstanding for providing caring and well-led services. We found the practice to be good for offering safe, effective and responsive services.

In addition we found the practice to be outstanding for providing services for older people and people with long term conditions, and good for providing services to families, children and young people, working age people, people whose circumstances might make them vulnerable, and people experiencing poor mental health.

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

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. Information about safety was recorded, monitored, appropriately reviewed and addressed.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.

• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• 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.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

• The Southwold Care Services Improvement Partnership (CSIP) project reflected the complex needs of the older population, with the majority of individuals supported being over 85yrs. The practice was in the process of discussions with the clinical commission group for an adjoining plot of land to be developed into the Sole Bay Health and Care Home as an extension to the work already undertaken by CSIP.

• The practice had instigated the Sole Bay Care Fund, this was an independent registered charity run by local trustees to provide short term emergency care, resources and equipment not normally funded by the NHS or Social Services. The fund provided immediate care and support to those patients with an acute medical or social care need and in many cases was effective in reducing unnecessary hospital admissions by providing short term care in the home or as near to home as possible.

However there were areas of practice where the provider should make improvements:

• Record verbal complaints in order to widen shared learning.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice