Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Modality Hillcrest Surgery on 7 July 2017 and 16 August 2017. 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 report incidents and near misses. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and a system in place for reporting and recording significant events.

• The practice had clearly defined and embedded systems to safeguard patients from abuse and minimise risks to patient safety. Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.

• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.

• The practice used clinical audits to review patient care and improved services as a result.

• Results from the national GP patient survey showed most patients felt that they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect, and were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.

• The practice worked closely with other organisations and with the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure that they meet patients’ needs.

• The practice implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way it delivered services based on feedback from patients and from the patient participation group.

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

• The practice actively reviewed complaints and how they are managed and responded to, and made improvements as a result.

• 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 stakeholders and was regularly reviewed and discussed with staff.

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

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Continue to review, monitor, and act upon patient experience data to drive service improvement. This includes the national GP survey results and satisfaction scores relating to access to services and interactions with GPs.

• Continue to promote patient education and the uptake for health screening programmes including the health checks for people with a learning disability, bowel and breast cancer screening.

• Ensure changes made to monitoring of patients on high risk medicines are embedded.

Janet Williamson

Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice