Archived: Avonmouth Medical Centre

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Avonmouth Medical Centre on 1 April 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, caring, responsive and effective services and for being well led. It was also good for providing services for the all the population groups.

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.
• The practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes, working with other local providers to share best practice.
• 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. High standards were promoted and owned by all practice staff with evidence of team working across all roles.

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

Importantly, the provider must:

• Ensure that the staff recruitment process is applied to all staff and so protects patients against the risks of the employment of unsuitable staff.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice