Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of The Surgery, Osborne Road on 20 October 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• The practice carried out clinical audit activity and were able to demonstrate improvements to patient care as a result of this.
• Feedback from patients about their care and access was higher than local and national averages. The results of the most recent suvey, which took place in July 2016, showed that the practice had gained above local and national averages for all of the 22 indicators. The practice told us that they had been ranked the 19th best performing practice in relation to the survey out of 7708 practices in England. Patients consistently reported that they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect.
• Patients were able to access same day appointments. Pre-bookable appointments were available within acceptable timescales.
• The practice had a number of policies and procedures to govern activity, which were reviewed and updated regularly.
• The practice regularly reviewed feedback from patients.
• The practice used the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) as one method of monitoring effectiveness and had achieved an overall result which was higher than local and national averages.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
• The practice had a clear vision in which quality and safety was prioritised. The strategy to deliver this vision was regularly discussed and reviewed.
• The practice did not have a specific process in place to support patients known to have experienced bereavement.

We saw areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice had developed a letter template to send to patients following NHS health checks. This included a summary report which gave patients information about their physical measurements, blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and cardiovascular risk and what this meant. The letter also included relevant advice, such as dietary advice, and guidance.
• The practice were pro-active in their support of breastfeeding mothers. At 80% the percentage of mothers still breastfeeding at eight weeks was higher than the national average of 46%. One of the GPs was a member of the GP Infant Feeding Network which is committed to providing early support for breastfeeding mothers, particularly in primary care.   

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice