Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Werrington Village Surgery on 20 July 2015. 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 those with dementia).

Our key findings were as follows:

• 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.

• The practice had changed the way it handled telephone calls to improve the experience of patients.

• 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.

• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.

• 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 (PPG).

We saw two features of outstanding practice including:

• The practice had an open and transparent culture were staff were encouraged to raise and discuss concerns that may affect patient safety. The practice had recorded 25 significant events for discussion. Significant events were reviewed with the whole practice team to maximise the learning from them. Often the person who reported the significant event had presented it to the group. When individual error was identified, staff openly reflected on how they had changed the way they worked to minimise the risk of the incident reoccurring.

• The patient participation group (PPG) had changed their constitution to allow all patients to attend meetings and encouraged them to share their thoughts and experiences of the practice. As a result the PPG meetings regularly attracted over 34 attendees. The PPG championed health promotion and improvement and helped patients to understand wider health services and how to access them.

However, there were also areas of practice where the provider should make improvements.

In addition the provider should:

• Review the need for GP held emergency medicines when visiting patients away from the practice building.
• Record clinical patient safety incidents on the National Reporting and Learning System to allow learning that is gained from incidents to be used by others.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice