Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Doctors David Geoffrey Roberts and Deborah Ann Wakefield on 26 January 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.
• 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.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
• Patients said they generally found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and that 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 the the requirements of the Duty of Candour (the intention of this duty is to ensure that providers of health and care services are open and transparent with people who use these services when for example errors are made or harm caused).

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

• The practice ran a weekly dizziness/vertigo clinic led by one of the GP partners. The clinic identified patients with conditions which effected balance such as benign paroxysmal positional vertigoand offered patients advice in how to manage episodes of dizziness and vertigo when these occurred. In the last four years the practice had dealt with around 1,200 patients (around 1,100 of whom are referred from other practices in the Wakefield area).

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We did not speak with people who used the service at this inspection because we were checking whether improvements had been made in relation to the recruitment of staff.

We spoke with the practice manager who told us the practice had not employed any new members of staff since the last inspection. We therefore checked whether the recruitment policy was up to date and discussed with the practice manager how they would ensure a robust recruitment process would be followed.

We will also again consider the recruitment of staff at the next scheduled inspection.

We spoke with nine patients and they were happy with the care and treatment they received. One patient said; “The reception staff are great and treat me with respect.” Another patient told us; “The care me and my family get is really good and we feel respected here.”

Patients expressed their views and were involved in making decisions about their care and treatment. Patients were given information and support regarding their treatment options.

The practice had clear information about how to safeguard children and vulnerable adults. The majority of the seven members of staff we spoke with were aware of what to do if they suspected abuse was happening. Although it was acknowledged by the safeguarding lead that “We don’t do as much for adult safeguarding.”

We looked at how new staff were recruited and this included a review of three staff records for staff recruited within the last seven months. The recruitment policy stated a job offer would be subject to receipt of satisfactory references and Criminal Records Bureaux (CRB) check. This has now been replaced by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. All three members of staff had either started employment prior to either references or a DBS check being obtained. We found appropriate checks were not undertaken before staff began work.

The majority of patients we spoke with knew what to do if they wished to make a complaint. The members of staff we spoke with informed us they were aware of the steps to take if a complaint was made directly to them.

We reviewed the information available to us about St Thomas Road Surgery on 29 May 2019. We did not find evidence of significant changes to the quality of service being provided since the last inspection. As a result, we decided not to inspect the surgery at this time. We will continue to monitor this information about this service throughout the year and may inspect the surgery when we see evidence of potential changes.