Archived: Story street medical practice and walk in centre

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Story Street Medical Practice and Walk-in Centre on 20 April 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
• Some patients said they found it difficult to make an appointment with a named GP however, urgent appointments were available the same day via the walk-in service.
• 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 proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the Duty of Candour. This means providers must be open and transparent with service users about their care and treatment, including when it goes wrong.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• The procedure for ensuring all alerts are read by all relevant staff should be re-enforced.

• The process for reviewing patient’s results/notes where they have attended health services ‘out of hours’ should be implemented.

• Ensure timings between multi-disciplinary team meetings are reviewed. .

• Ensure patients who are attending the ‘walk-in’ service are made aware of the waiting times to see a clinician and also told of any potential delay.

• Although patient feedback is being sort in other ways the practice should explore ways of introducing and implementing a patient participation group (PPG) to drive improvement through further suggestions from a patient perspective.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice