Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Streatham High Surgery on 12 November 2014. Overall the practice is rated as Outstanding.

Specifically, we found the practice to be outstanding for providing responsive services and for being well led. It was rated outstanding at providing services to two of the six population groups we report on: Working age people and People whose circumstances may make them vulnerable. It was good at providing services for the other four population groups we report on: Older people, Families, children and young people, People with long-term conditions and People experiencing poor mental health. It was good for providing safe, effective and caring services.

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 incidents were maximised.
• 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.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

• Appointments are available at Streatham High Surgery 08.00am to 8.45pm on Mondays to Thursdays, 08.00am to 6.30pm on Fridays, and 09.30am to 12.00noon on Saturdays. The practice had been providing these longer surgery opening hours for a number of years, even before the introduction of this as an enhanced service to their contract.
• Since July 2014, the practice had been supporting its patient participation group (PPG) to organise and provide Saturday drop in sessions at the surgery. These sessions were health promotion events, and the topics were selected by members of the PPG, responding to issues that mattered to patients. The provider employed a director of patient experience, engagement and community participation, who worked closely with the PPG to ensure the practice understood more about what was important for patients.
• There were excellent examples of how the practice’s vision and ethos were implemented by the staff team working together to maintain high standards, deliver positive health outcomes for patients and foster a supportive work environment. The practice achieved the Royal College of General practitioners (RCGP) Quality Practice Award (QPA) and an Investor in People (IIP) award. QOF data for this practice showed the practice was performing exceptionally high compared with local and national averages, achieving an overall score of 99.9% in the 2013 /14 year.
• The practice held multidisciplinary clinical team meetings twice weekly to discuss the needs of complex patients, for example those with end of life care needs or children on the at risk register.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice