Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We inspected this service as part of our new comprehensive inspection programme. This provider had not been inspected before and that was why we included them.

We carried out a comprehensive inspection of this service under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is 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.

Overall we found the practice provided patients with a good service. The practice had a smaller branch surgery at Hatfield Broad Oak which we did not inspect but from which we did collect comment cards.

Our key findings were as follows:

• The practice had a proactive Patient Participation Group that met three times last year. We saw that actions had been taken by the practice to the Patient Participation Groups requests and action plans were outlined in meeting minutes.
• The practice had a care home protocol that formalised arrangements between the practice and the care home, from raising a concern to requesting a home visit. This had been recently agreed and was clear on all aspects of service provision and communication between the care home and the practice.
• Patients completed CQC comment cards to tell us what they thought about the practice. We received 59 completed cards and the majority were positive about the service experienced. Patients said they felt the practice offered an excellent service and staff were efficient, helpful and caring. They said staff treated them with dignity and respect. Three comments were less positive but there were no common themes to these. We also spoke with nine patients on the day of our inspection. All told us they were satisfied with the care provided by the practice.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice