Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Zetland Medical Practice on 20 October 2016. 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. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.

• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.

• The practice actively reviewed complaints and how they were managed and responded to, and made improvements as a result.
• 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.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.

• Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and 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 acted upon feedback from staff and patients.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.
• The practice had strong and visible clinical and managerial leadership and governance arrangements.

We saw areas of outstanding practice:

The practice provides an acupuncture service for pain management. The practice had one of the lowest referral rates within South Tees CCG to the pain clinic.

The continuous improvement work that specific GP’s were involved in, which benefitted both their patients and the wider community. For example, the use of Skype with a computer link up to local care home, where advice and consultations could take place.

The practice operated a duty GP system. An important aspect of this role was to conduct home visits to patients earlier in the day. This then allowed for earlier health intervention which prevented overnight stays in hospital.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice