Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Willow Wood Surgery on 9 June 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, well-led, caring and responsive services and outstanding for providing effective services. It was also good for providing services for the following population groups 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, people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia).

• 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.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment. Information was provided to help patients understand the care available to them.

• 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).

• 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. A business plan was in place, was monitored and regularly reviewed and discussed with all staff. High standards were promoted and owned by all practice staff with evidence of team working across all roles.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

• The practice worked closely with other organisations and with the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure that they meet people’s needs. For example the practice was part of a CCG supported scheme to reduce the number of hospital attendance and admissions for patients living in residential and nursing homes. Data provided by the GP lead showed from that for year 2011/12 to year 2012/13 there had been a 76% reduction in patients being admitted to hospital from the accident and emergency unit of the local hospital.

• The practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes, working with other local providers to share best practice. For example the practice was instrumental in developing an initiative to improve care over the winter months (2014/15) and to reduce hospital admissions. This initiative provided an early intervention scheme to allow patients to be seen at home earlier in the morning and a paediatric centralised clinic to support parents to access GPs and nurses rather than attending accident and emergency departments. The initiative also increased access to GP services around high demand periods such as Easter.
• The practice had introduced a new system whereby patients hospital discharge summaries were triaged daily by one of the practice nurses with anything that required action referred to the GPs. This system had recently been reviewed and showed that GPs were now reviewing and actioning approximately 40% of the total number of discharge summaries. This allowed them to provide more appointments.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice