Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

This was a comprehensive inspection of the Ferns Medical Practice and was carried out on 15 October 2014.

Overall, we found the practice provided a good service. We found outstanding practice in the way the practice responded to the needs of  patients with long term conditions, families, children and young people and people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable, providing them with effective care and treatment. We found good practice in the way the practice responded to the needs of older people, working age people (including those recently retired and students) and people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia).

Our key findings were as follows:

• Patients expressed positive views concerning the level of respect shown to them by all staff members and stated they felt fully involved in their treatment.
• There were effective infection control procedures in place and the premises appeared clean and well maintained.
• The practice assists with the training of qualified doctors gaining experience of working in General Practice and of medical students, who are attached to the practice for a period during the final year of their course.
• The practice provided GP appointments at times that met the needs of their patients.
• The practice demonstrated effective communication processes throughout all areas.
• The practice held weekly clinical meetings each Monday where they were able to discuss the complex needs of patients with other health professionals such as district nurses and social workers.
• The practice had a green flag alert system in place to highlight to GPs those patients that held caring responsibilities. This system had proved invaluable should a carer have to go into hospital themselves for treatment and ensured the GP was aware that patient had caring responsibilities so could take responsive action as required.
• The practice had an additional quiet waiting area separate to the main waiting area which proved invaluable for people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable and people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia).

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

• A nurse had undertaken specialist training to support patients with cancer care needs.
• The practice ran two contraception clinics, one of which was a walk in arrangement the other was booked in advance.
• The practice had a specific GP who specialised in drug and alcohol services who ran a weekly specialised substance misuse clinic for vulnerable patients.
• The practice had long associated links with the local University and provided a health care team on student registration days. The health care team had identified and vaccinated students who had not had their Meningitis C immunisation before starting university.

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

The provider should:

• Ensure they have an effective system to manage correspondence about patients from external providers such as the Out of Hours provider.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice