Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Drs Lesser, Giblin & Piccaver known as Glemsford Surgery on 1 November 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• 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 practice staff and was regularly reviewed.

• The practice had strong and visible clinical, managerial leadership and governance arrangements.

• Practice 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.

• The practice system to ensure patients taking high risk medicines were monitored was appropriate and effective.

• Patients said they found it easy to get an appointment at a time convenient for them and usually with their GP of choice.

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

• The practice demonstrated that they used a team approach that assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Practice staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge, and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.

• The practice strived to maintain and provide additional services to benefit the patients. For example, the practice had campaigned to retain the phlebotomy, mental health worker, and physiotherapy services within the practice ensuring that patients could be seen timely in the practice and did not have to travel.

• The patients had launched a campaign to protect the dispensary within the practice from being compromised by a pharmacy opening up in the village. With the patients’ support the practice opened their own pharmacy, ensuring that all their patients were able to obtain their medicines within the practice. The team undertook deliveries to over 50 households each week.

• The practice did not have an active face to face patient participation group but had used social media and the local Women’s Institute Group to ensure they engaged with and gained feedback from patients.

Areas of outstanding;

• The practice were instrumental in contacting and working with the Roald Dahl’s’ Marvellous Children’s Charity to ensure that a patient was able to have an essential piece of equipment to manage their condition at home. Following a negative response from many health agencies, the GP contacted the charity and secured funding, and the purchase of the equipment. The practice, staff, local school, and village residents have continued to support the charity. For example for Roald Dahl’s 100th birthday celebrations the children aged around 5 years had a trail to follow, the practice allowed space in the waiting room for a sculpture to be positioned. The GPs and practice staff support other various fund raising events.

• The practice worked with charities, third sector, and voluntary agencies to maximise benefits for their patients. They had arranged for food parcels from the food bank to be delivered to those patients in need of them.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

Continue to find ways to engage a patient participation group.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice