Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Colne Medical Practice on 18 March 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing well-led, effective, caring and responsive services. It was also good for providing services for older people, people with long term conditions, working age people, families, children and young people, those people whose circumstances make them vulnerable, and those people experiencing poor mental health (including dementia).

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

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. Information about safety was recorded, monitored, appropriately reviewed and addressed.
• Risks to patients were assessed and managed, with the exception of those relating to infection control and recruitment checks.
• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
• Patients said they 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.

However there were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

Importantly the provider should:

• Ensure the recruitment policy includes all necessary pre-employment checks for all staff to include photographic identify, disclosure and barring service check and a reference check.
• Update policies specifically infection control, to ensure they accurately reflect the actions to be taken.
• The practice should ensure that infection control training is completed and an infection control audit completed following this.
• Ensure appraisal takes place for the nursing staff.
• Repair or remove the damaged seating and remove plugs from clinical areas.
• Consider regular meetings with administration and reception staff.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We found the service to be welcoming with friendly staff. Practice information was displayed for people who used the service, including health promotion, access to support services and other services available. There was a touch screen booking in facility in the reception area and appointments could be made on line using the practice website, by telephone or in person at the surgery.

We spoke with eight people who all spoke highly of the services provided to them. We also spoke with staff who said they enjoyed working in the practice.

People’s needs were assessed and care and treatment was planned and delivered in line with their individual wishes. One person said, "It’s nice always seeing the same doctor. My doctor knows all my family." Another person said, "Everyone is very polite. I can always get an appointment.”

We saw that there was a system to ensure repeat prescriptions were available promptly and medicines that were kept at the practice were stored safely.

The practice had an electronic records system, which was used by all staff. Paper records received from other areas, when people changed practices, were stored safely. However, there was a significant backlog of paper records which had not yet been summarised into an electronic format.