Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr Martin Weatherhead on 14 January 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. Lessons were learned when incidents and near misses occurred.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• 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.
• There was a strong, visible, person centred culture. Relationships between staff and patients were strong, caring and supportive. 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.
• Patients were able to access appointments at times that were convenient.
• 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 provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the Duty of Candour.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

• There was a proactive approach to understanding the needs of different groups of people and to delivering care in a way that promoted equality. This included people who are in vulnerable circumstances or who have complex needs. For example, the practice had proactively responded to the high numbers of patients presenting with drug and alcohol problems by providing them with access to in-house support services. The principle GP was the lead for these services which included the provision of emergency detox and urgent and specialist interventions such as prescriptions of medicines to prevent relapses. These services were also available to patients registered at other local practices.

There is one area where the provider should make improvements:

• Review their arrangements for monitoring the storage of medicines that require refrigeration to take into account national guidance.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We inspected the practice on 15 September 2014, as part of our new comprehensive inspection programme of Dr Weatherhead, Southwick Health Centre, The Green, Southwick, and Sunderland.

Of the patients we spoke with and who completed the CQC comment cards 28 were extremely complimentary about the care and treatment being provided.

The building was well-maintained and very clean. Effective systems were in place for the oversight and management of medication. Clinical decisions followed best practice. We found that the leadership team was very visible.

Our key findings were as follows:

* The information we reviewed from the practice and external sources showed they had a good track record for maintaining patient safety.

* The GPs looked at how they could continually improve the service and learn lessons from any incidents that had occurred.

* We observed staff behave in a professional manner and treat patients with dignity and respect.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

* Dr Weatherhead was very effective at working with people who were addicted to substances and ran the practice flexibly, which meant people could be seen when in crisis.

* The practice hold a medicine stock to use when patients attend for review and forget to bring their own medicines, for example we ask patients to bring their own inhalers to use for reversibility testing during spirometry.

* For patients who do run out of their medication the practice will always arrange for a prescription to be done on the same day and for it to be delivered to the patient if they’re unable to get to the practice.

* Patients found that the staff were non-judgemental and went out of their way to deliver equitable services to all.

* Dr Weatherhead offers learning disability health checks at home for those who find it difficult to come to the surgery.

The practice safely and effectively provided services for all patient groups. The staff were caring and ensured all treatments being provided followed best practice guidance. The practice was well-led and responsive to patients’ needs.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We reviewed the information available to us about Dr Martin Weatherhead on 15 May 2019. We did not find evidence of significant changes to the quality of service being provided since the last inspection. As a result, we decided not to inspect the surgery at this time. We will continue to monitor this information about this service throughout the year and may inspect the surgery when we see evidence of potential changes.