Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Gordon Street Medical Centre on 5 February 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 to report incidents and near misses. Information about safety was recorded, monitored, appropriately reviewed and addressed.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed, including those relating to recruitment checks.

• 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.

• Data showed patient outcomes were in line with or above those locally and nationally.

• Feedback from patients about their care was consistently and strongly positive.

• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.

• Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment and that there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.

• The practice implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way it delivered services as a result of feedback from patients.

• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
• 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.

However there were areas of practice where the provider should make improvements:

• Ensure coding within patients records is accurate and the use of exception reporting is in line with guidance to ensure patients outcomes are appropriately reflected in data.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Gordon Street Medical Centre is located on the outskirts of Ashton under Lyne. The practice is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to deliver care under the following regulated activities: diagnostic and screening, family planning, maternity and midwifery, surgical procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

The patients we spoke with were complimentary about the service and the professionalism of the doctors, although some were unhappy about the lack of appointment times available.

The Centre currently has 4,250 registered patients. We looked at the latest patient satisfaction survey completed by an external company. We saw that satisfaction levels were high with 91% of people assessing services as either good or excellent. Staff at the Centre clearly understood their responsibility to cater to different population groups in their area.

We reviewed the information available to us about Gordon Street Medical Centre on 24 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.