Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Tisbury Surgery on 2 March 2016.

Overall the practice is rated as good.

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.

• Feedback from patients about their care was consistently and strongly positive.

• The practice implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way it delivered services as a consequence of feedback from patients and from the patient participation group.

  For example, installing a handrail in the corridor.

• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs. Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand.

• The practice had a clear vision which had quality and safety as its top priority.

• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the Duty of Candour.

• The national GP patient survey showed 100% of patients found it easy to get through to this surgery by phone, compared to a national average of 73%.

• The practice had a longstanding and active patient participation group (PPG) which met at least three times a year and meetings were attended by at least of the GP partners. Members of the PPG had their contact details listed on the practice website so that patients could contact them directly if they wished.

We saw some areas of outstanding practice.

• They were proactive in communicating with patients. For example, following a recent drug safety alert the practice wrote a personal letter to all patients affected, signed by the GP, giving them further advice about the medicine and inviting them to contact the GP if they wanted to discuss it further.

   

• The practice management was sensitive to the needs of the service and those working in it and had clear and robust systems in place.  For example the practice had a system for reviewing their policies and procedures which included recording the changes made and the reasons for them.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice