Archived: Victoria Road Medical Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Victoria Road Medical Practice on 15 January 2015. We have provided an overall rating of good for this practice. However, there are areas which require improvement in effectiveness, specifically for the population groups where patients were experiencing mental health problems and for patients whose circumstances make them vulnerable. The practice was taken over by the current provider in October 2012 and have recently been working to put plans in place to improve the service which was experiencing difficulties in meeting people’s needs. However, they were not able to demonstrate effectiveness in all areas at the time of our inspection.

A medical director was appointed only three months ago to lead and develop the practice. This has resulted in many changes and plans being developed to improve the service overall. As a result, whilst we saw evidence of improvements in all areas, we were unable to assess the effects of some of these after such a short time. We saw that the practice had plans for future developments in all areas but were focusing on establishing robust systems and processes in all areas to facilitate good clinical care.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management.

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses.

• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.

• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.

• The practice were actively seeking feedback from staff and patients and trying to widen the membership of the patient participation group.

However there were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements. The practice should:

• Fully personalise the business continuity plan to ensure it contains all details specific to the practice.

• Introduce systems to ensure that staff are up to date with mandatory training such as fire and Mental Capacity Act (2005) training.

• Provide more comprehensive information regarding methods of booking appointments, out of hours arrangements and the complaints procedure to patients in the practice leaflet.

• Introduce more robust methods to ensure that difficult cases and review of elective and urgent referrals are formally discussed and documented to facilitate learning and ensure all staff delivering care are aware of any changes.

• Progress the establishment of multi-disciplinary meetings for palliative and end of life care and patients with complex conditions.

• Continue to develop and establish robust systematic processes to manage patients’ care from vulnerable groups and those with mental health problems.

• Ensure that a policy is developed to ensure consistency in medication reviews and the coding.

• Ensure that the legionella testing is completed as soon as possible and a more robust system for future checking is introduced.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice