Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
This practice is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection 25 February 2015 – Good).
The key questions are rated as:
Are services safe? – Good
Are services effective? – Good
Are services caring? – Good
Are services responsive? – Good
Are services well-led? – Good
As part of our inspection process, we also look at the quality of care for specific population groups. The population groups are rated as:
Older People Good
People with long-term conditions – Good
Families, children and young people – Good
Working age people (including those recently retired and students) – Good
People whose circumstances may make them vulnerable – Good
People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia) – Good
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Southwell Medical Centre on 13 December 2017 as part of our inspection programme.
At this inspection we found:
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Some of the systems in place to support the appropriate and safe handling of medicinesrequired review and improvement.
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Significant events and incidents were appropriately identified, recorded and acted on. When any incidents happened, the practice learned from them, improved their processes and ensured staff relevant information was shared with staff.
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There was a consistent approach to quality and improvement within the practice, which brought about positive changes. This included using audits to help drive improvement and evidence of reflective learning as a result of these.
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End of life care was delivered in a coordinated way with detailed care plans in place to describe the needs and care arrangements for each of these patients and help ensure that their wishes were respected.
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The practice supported a nearby university campus and were very proactive in this. They encouraged new students to register as patients and liaised with the university student support team to ensure that they were aware of any particular health issues for this patient group.
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Patients felt staff were very professional, helpful and caring and could access appointments or other support from the practice when they needed to.
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Results from the latest national GP patient survey showed that the practice was in line with local and national averages across all questions about patient experience.
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There was strong clinical leadership which impacted positively upon the quality of the service.
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Staff throughout the practice felt well supported and able to raise any concerns. They had confidence that any worries they had would be listened to and acted on.
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The views and concerns of patients and staff were encouraged, heard and acted on to help improve services
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The practice had an active, well organised patient participation group (PPG) which played a key role in representing the views of patients and helping to improve the services offered by the practice.
The areas of practice where the provider should make improvement are;
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Implement the practice recruitment policy reliably so that all appropriate checks are completed when staff are recruited.
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Review arrangements for the receipt and review of all safety alerts to be able to demonstrate appropriate action is taken to protect patients from risk.
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Consider how to best support a greater proportion of patients with a learning disability to access an annual review of their health needs.
Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)
Chief Inspector of General Practice