Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr Mehboob Bhatti’s practice on 31 May 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• Staff we spoke with understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. We saw evidence to demonstrate that learning was shared amongst staff.
• 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.
• Patients we spoke with told us 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 in the waiting area and in the practice leaflet. Although the practice did not have any written complaints, we saw that verbal complaints were being logged.
• Data from the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) during the year 2014/2015 showed the practice was an outlier for clinical targets in diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) prevalence, asthma reviews and cervical screening. Unverified and unpublished data provided post-inspection by the practice for the year 2015/2016, showed significant improvements in these areas.
• Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• The practice had a number of policies and procedures to govern activity, although some were not practice specific.
• 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 had sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
• The provider was aware of the requirements of the duty of candour.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review and update procedures and guidance to ensure they are properly reflective of the requirements of the practice and do not contain outdated or incorrect information.
• Review procedures to ensure effective documentation and organisation of information to enable easier monitoring processes. For example staff meeting records or infection control action plan monitoring.
• Consider how carers could be more proactively identified to ensure all carers were being effectively supported. 

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We reviewed the information available to us about Dr Mehboob Bhatti on 30 April 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.