Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Well Street Surgery on 21 January 2016. 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.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had 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.
• 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 provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the Duty of Candour.

We saw two areas of outstanding practice:

• Some staff of the practice had been involved in setting up a charity, ‘Helping Hackney Health’, which offered healthy cooking and education courses to patients with learning disabilities, families, people from various communities in the practice area, diabetic patients and people with poor mental health. The practice found that those attending the courses increased their fruit and vegetable consumption over the duration of the course (fruit from 1.52 to 2.53, vegetables from 1.41 to 2.61) and 90% of participants were ‘confident’ at the end of the course in reading food labels compared to 58% at the beginning of the course.

• The practice directly employed a pharmacist, who took a lead in medicines reconciliation and medicines audits, and was able to provide tests, advice and reviews for patients with complex needs or long term conditions.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We reviewed the information available to us about Well Street Surgery on 11 May 2019. We did not find evidence of significant changes to the quality of service being provided since the last inspection. As a result, we decided not to inspect the surgery at this time. We will continue to monitor this information about this service throughout the year and may inspect the surgery when we see evidence of potential changes.