Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Helios Medical Practice on 9 July 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, effective, responsive and well led services and outstanding for providing caring services. It was also rated as good for providing services for all of the population groups.

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.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
• Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and that there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• 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 practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes, working with other local providers to share best practice.
• The practice had a Patient Participation Group (PPG) which they had chosen to call a Patient Partnership Group as they worked in partnership with the practice. The practice implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way it delivered services as a consequence of feedback from patients and from the PPG.

• The practice facilities were designed and equipped to meet patients’ treatment needs.

We saw areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice had consulted with patients who stated their preference for longer appointment times and this was implemented so each GP appointment is a minimum of 15 minutes.
• The practice had a holistic approach to care and encompassed complementary treatments which accommodated those patients whose religious beliefs excluded some aspects of conventional medicine and was known within this religious community to be non- judgmental about medical choices made.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice