Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr J O'Donnell's Practice on 6 July 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.We saw good evidence of improving the service by learning from adverse events and errors. Improvements were evidentwhen patient complaints had been made.

• The practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes, working with other local providers to share best practice.

• Feedback from patients about their care was consistently positive.

• The practice worked closely with other organisations and with the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure that they meet patients’ needs.

• 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 (PPG). For example the PPG made the suggestion that GPs availability should be added to the practice website to help patients when making appointments and this was carried out.

• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.

• The practice actively reviewed complaints and how they were managed and responded to, and made improvements as a result.

• The practice had 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.

We saw areas of outstanding practice including:

• We heard that the practice had a high number of older patients within their community. The practice manager reviewed this population to try and identify those older people who might be a risk of being socially isolated and as a result lonely. Working with the practice PPG they set up a friendship group offering social events such as afternoon tea in the practice with an opportunity to meet new people. These social events included a Christmas party with every person attending receiving a present. At Easter another event was organsied for people to come together for social activities such as bingo. All staff participated in these events and some transported patients to and from the practice in their own cars where patients did not have their own transport. The practice believes there to be many benefits to these befriending events, including improving access and awareness of health services available at their own practice.

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

• Develop a protocol or procedure for the safe transport, storage and administration of vaccines in the community setting.

• Review the use of a staff incident book to record events described as minor in nature.

• Ensure that information for staff about any relevant physical or mental health conditions is collected as part of the recruitment process.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice