Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at York Road Group Practice on 6th October 2015.

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 report incidents and near misses. Staff were aware of procedures for safeguarding patients from risk of abuse.
• There were appropriate systems in place to reduce risks to patient safety, for example, infection control procedures and the management of medication. However, the records of some environmental safety checks and the recruitment records needed improvement.
• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles.

• Patients were overall positive about the care they received from the practice. They commented that they were treated with respect and dignity and that staff were caring, supportive and helpful.

• Services were planned and delivered to take into account the needs of different patient groups.

• Feedback from patients indicated they considered improvements were needed to availability of appointments, length of time waiting to be seen and access to the practice by phone. The practice had made changes to the service to improve access and planned on making further changes.

• The practice sought patient views about improvements that could be made to the service and acted on patient feedback. Information about how to complain was available.

• There were systems in place to monitor and improve quality and identify risk.

There were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements:

The provider should:

Introduce a formal system to review significant events to ensure the identified action has been undertaken and that it has been effective.

Ensure that a system is in place to check the on-going registration of GPs with the General Medical Council and the National Performers List.

Ensure that a record of all checks undertaken in relation to staff recruitment are held at the practice.

Ensure that appropriate checks of the water systems are undertaken and that the emergency lighting is regularly serviced and records are held to demonstrate this.

Ensure that actions taken following the investigation of complaints are fully documented to demonstrate that appropriate measures have been taken.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

York Road Group Practice provides general medical services from a health centre which was purpose built about 22 years ago. There are five male GPs and one female GP working at the practice. The health centre is open from 8am to 6:30pm Monday to Friday inclusive and is closed at the weekend. The practice is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to provide the following regulated activities:-

• Diagnostic and Screening
• Family Planning
• Maternity and midwifery services
• Treatment of disease, disorder and injury
• Surgical Procedures

We spoke with GPs, staff, patients and the relatives of patients during our inspection. Patients we spoke with and who completed our CQC comment cards told us they were generally happy with the services they received. We saw that the service is provided in premises which are well maintained and clean.

There are systems in place which ensured the safety of patients. These included learning from occurrences, experiences and events and included the safe use of medicines administered on site. We saw data which demonstrated the service was effective in meeting the wide ranging needs of patients. Systems are in place to monitor the quality of care given to patients. Good management control systems are in place and included those for the management of clinical risk.

Patients told us they felt involved in discussions about their own health care and about the treatment options available to them. We saw patients being spoken to with sensitivity and respect by all staff during the course of the inspection. All staff have access to equipment, guidance and training. Staff received adequate information about the patient to support clinical decisions and effectively respond to those in urgent need.

Staff described the service as having a strong management team. Staff told us they felt appropriately trained and supported to do their job and we saw records to show new members of staff were properly inducted, checked for suitability and safety to work in their given role.

We reviewed the information available to us about York Road Group Practice on 24 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.