Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Corfton Road Surgery on 20 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. The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• 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. 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 with a named GP and 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 areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• The practice should ensure that it receives and acts on relevant non-clinical safety alerts (for example to assess the risk posed by looped blind cords).
• The practice should make greater use of two-cycle clinical audit within its quality improvement programme to ensure that observed improvements are sustained in practice.
• The practice had relatively high exception reporting rates for some Quality and Outcome Framework indicators (for example, on diabetes). The practice should investigate these areas of practice to ensure it is fully meeting patients' needs.
• The practice should consider ways to understand and improve standardised measures of patient feedback with its nursing service.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice