Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Parkfield Medical Centre on 5 July 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 report incidents and near misses and there was an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
• Feedback from patients about their care was consistently positive. Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they 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 met patients’ needs.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
• Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and 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 consequence of 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.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• Staff worked with multidisciplinary teams to understand and meet the range and complexity of patients’ needs. We saw evidence that multidisciplinary team meetings took place every two months.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the Duty of Candour. The practice encouraged a culture of openness and honesty.

An area of outstanding was identified as follows:

• The practice had supported the patient participation group to set up an exercise group for older patients. This was held twice a week and was open to all patients who could only do gentle exercise or aged over 60 years. A total of 30 patients attended the exercise group. This encouraged patients to meet together and improve their well being. We saw displays in reception encouraging patients to attend.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Seek and act on feedback received from patients to demonstrate improvements to services.
• Ensure follow up of children who DNA their hospital appointments,

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice