Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Parkside Surgery on 17 December 2014. During the inspection we spoke with patients, members of the patient participation group (PPG), interviewed staff of all levels and checked that the right systems and processes were in place.

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

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.
• The practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes, working with other local providers to share best practice. For example audit of inherited high cholesterol
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment. Information was provided to help patients understand the care available to them.
• 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 (PPG).
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs. Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand
• The practice had a clear vision which had quality and safety as its top priority. High standards were promoted and owned by all practice staff with evidence of team working across all roles. The practice contributed leadership and mentoring locally and nationally.

We saw one area of outstanding practice including:

• The practice had conducted audits that influenced health care locally and nationally.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice