Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at ‘The Practice Surgeries Limited’, Northumberland Avenue, Southend, on 05 November 2014. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, effective, caring, responsive, and well-led, services. It was also good for providing services for older people, people with long-term conditions, families, children and young people, working age people (including those recently retired and students), people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable, and people experiencing poor mental health (including people with 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.
• 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.
• The practice regularly reviewed their appointment system to meet the needs of their growing practice population.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

• Weekend surgeries, with regular clinical staff, were used to provide clinics for monitoring patients with long term conditions as well as for regular appointments.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Practice, Northumberland Avenue on 21 March 2019 as part of our inspection programme.

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

• what we found when we inspected
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We have rated this practice as good overall and good for all population groups, except people with long term conditions which we have rated as requires improvement.

We have rated this population group as requires improvement because:

• There was a negative or significant negative variation in performance across all three of the

diabetes indicators.

• The exception reporting rate for patients with COPD was more than double the local CCG average and higher than the national average.

We found that:

• The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Ensure that timely action is taken to routinely improve services following the results of clinical audits.
• Improve the exception reporting rate for patients with hypertension and COPD.
• Increase the uptake of childhood immunisations.
• Improve performance across the three diabetes indicators.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care