Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
This practice is rated as Requires Improvement overall (and for providing safe and well-led services). The practice is rated as Good for providing effective, caring and responsive services. This was the first inspection of the practice under the current provider.
The key questions are rated as:
Are services safe? – Requires Improvement
Are services effective? – Good
Are services caring? – Good
Are services responsive? – Good
Are services well-led? – Requires Improvement
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 – Requires Improvement
People with long-term conditions – Requires Improvement
Families, children and young people – Requires Improvement
Working age people (including those retired and students – Requires Improvement
People whose circumstances may make them vulnerable – Requires Improvement
People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia) - Requires Improvement
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Westgate Surgery on 7 December 2017. This inspection was carried out as part of our inspection programme and was the first inspection under the new provider.
At this inspection we found:
- All the practice’s policies and procedures were embedded and easily accessible to all staff.
- The practice reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence based guidelines.
- There was a clear system in place for acting upon and cascading drug safety alerts.
- Staff involved patients in their care, and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
- Patient feedback indicated lack of satisfaction with the telephone service following the transfer of all calls to a centralised administrative call-handling team. However; the provider had taken steps to address and improve this.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
- Continue to identify and record significant events and incidents and improve the documentation of relevant learning within the system to support this.
- Continue to monitor and review the standard operating procedures implemented to support the central administration call-handling team.
- Continue to engage with staff through one to one meetings, appraisals and induction to provide support and leadership.
- Review and improve the system for acting upon complaints in the event of management absence.
- Review, improve and widen the scope of audits and quality improvement activities.
Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)
Chief Inspector of General Practice