Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr Iqbal Ahmed Khan (The Lindley Village Surgery) on 14 March 2017. 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. A full practice meeting which included safety alerts was held at the practice each month to review any concerns.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.

• 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 implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way it delivered services as a consequence of feedback from the patient participation group. For example, improving the appointment and telephone answering systems by having more staff available to take calls at busy times.
• 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. For example, stopping the baby clinic and moving to an ‘as and when required’ system. As a result mothers with babies could attend the practice any time for childhood immunisations.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour and had a clear policy statement. In addition, a policy called Being Open underpinned their approach to honesty and integrity, ensuring that all staff were aware of their duty of care.

The area where the provider should make improvement:

• Continue to address the low number of carers on the practice register to assure themselves that carers are aware of support available to them.
• The provider should re-evaluate the complaints policy to address the timeline of correspondence.
• Ensure all clinical equipment at the practice is in date to ensure it is working properly. For example blood glucose test strips (diabetes test strips) should be in date, also needles and skin cleansing pads.
• Review monitoring of patient care to ensure that patients are included in data which indicates whether appropriate care is received. The quality outcomes framework (QOF) reporting indicated monitoring of patient care and treatment was not always recorded.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice