Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr Noakes and Partners also known as The Park Surgery on 10 November 2015. Overall the practice is rated as outstanding.

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

In addition we found the practice to be outstanding for providing services for older people, people with long term conditions, 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:

• In response to the high rates of teenage pregnancy and termination of pregnancy (TOP) rates in the area, one GP had trained to fit intrauterine coil devices and contraceptive implants. As a result the practice had seen a 60% decrease in the number of patients undergoing TOPs since 2011.

• Patients who did not attend for bowel and breast screening were identified by the practice and written to with supporting information to ensure they were able to make a clear and informed choice. In addition patients who did not attend for cervical screening were personally telephoned by the practice manager in the early evening to ensure they had received the information to make an informed and valid choice.

• The practice had a health trainer to support weight management, alcohol reduction and smoking cessation and could demonstrate this had a positive impact for patients using this service.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We reviewed the information available to us about Dr Noakes and Partners on 6 June 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.