Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Peacock Practice on 9 December 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events. Learning outcomes were shared with staff.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed. Health and safety precautions had been taken which included checking that equipment was fully working and safe to use and infection prevention control measures were in place. The practice was able to respond in the event of a patient emergency.
• The practice had systems in place to keep all clinical staff up to date. Staff had access to guidelines from National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). The practice performance was lower than local and national averages for the management of some conditions and the practice were taking some steps to try and improve this.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment. Positive patient feedback was obtained regarding the care, treatment and services provided.
• 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, although not with a named GP. The practice participation group (PPG) were trying to promote the uptake of access to other GPs following two GPs who had left or taken long term leave. We found there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• 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. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Ensure a co-ordinated and managed approach is adopted for the distribution of medicines alerts within the practice reflecting actions taken to ensure patient safety.

• Continue to review and improve practice performance in respect of patients with long term conditions and mental health needs.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

This practice is rated as Good overall.

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Peacock Practice on 9 December 2016. The overall rating for the practice was good with requires improvement in effective. No breaches of legal requirements were found. However we made recommendations to improve the system for managing medicines alerts and to continue to improve the practice performance in respect of patients with long-term conditions and mental health needs. The full comprehensive report on the December 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Peacock Practice AKA Peacock Healthcare on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was an announced comprehensive inspection at Peacock Practice on 24 April and 14 May 2018. This inspection was carried out under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. The inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

At this inspection we found:

• The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.
• The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
• Clinicians had access to appropriate information to deliver safe care and treatment.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported they were able to access care when they needed it. Patient feedback on the care and treatment delivered by all staff was positive.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Explore how patient satisfaction scores relating to access in the national GP patient survey could be improved, particularly in relation to access to appointments and ease of getting through to the practice by telephone.
• Continue to improve the system for filing records.
• Review the system for the recording, storage and accessibility for staff of minutes of meetings held.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice