Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Lombard Medical Centre on 16 July 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, effective, responsive, caring and well led services. It was good for providing services for older people, people with long term conditions, families, children and babies, working age people (including those recently retired), people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable and people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia).

Our key findings were as follows:

• Systems were in place for the learning and improvement from safety incidents. Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents. Learning from incidents was shared widely. Risks to patients were assessed and well managed
• A multi-disciplinary approach to patient care was evident; the practice worked well with other agencies to ensure care and support was coordinated.
• 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 training planned.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment but raised concerns about access to appointments.
• Information about how to make a complaint was available and easy to understand. Complaints were dealt with appropriately and in a timely manner
• 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.
• There was a strong commitment to quality within the practice and we saw evidence of a robust quality system.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

• The practice employed a pharmacist three days per week to provide a consultation and advice service. The pharmacist’s role involved carrying out medicines audits, reviews of patients’ medicines and offering clinics to see patients. The pharmacist was a trained prescriber and provided support to the nurse prescribers within the practice. The work of the pharmacist enabled the practice to effectively implement evidence based prescribing across a range of therapeutic drugs with patients.
• The practice had worked closely with the local traveller community and the lead GP for this group had been involved in making an award winning TV documentary which was subsequently used as a training tool.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice