Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We inspected this service on 18 November 2014 as part of our new comprehensive inspection programme.

The overall rating for this service is good. We found the practice to be good in the safe, responsive caring, effective and well-led domains. We found the practice provided good care to older people, people with long term conditions, people in vulnerable circumstances, families, children and young people, working age people and people experiencing poor mental health.

Our key findings were as follows:

• Patients were kept safe because there were arrangements in place for staff to report and learn from key safety risks. The practice had a system in place for reporting, recording and monitoring significant events over time.
• The practice was responsive to the differing needs of its patient population. It had taken particular steps to encourage non English speakers to undergo bowel screening.
• The practice worked well with a home for people with learning disabilities.

However, there were also areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

The provider should:

• Make further efforts to collect the views of its patients.
• Ensure there is clinical supervision of the practice health care assistant.
• Improve record keeping for multi-disciplinary team meetings.
• Engage with staff through more regular formal team meetings.
• Ensure that practice recruitment policies are followed on every occasion.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice