Archived: Balderton Medical Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Balderton Medical Practice on 25 February 2015. This is the first time we have inspected this practice.

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

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

• Comments from patients were generally very positive about the care and services they received. They said that they were treated with kindness, dignity and respect and were involved in decisions about their care and treatment.
• The practice was accessible and well equipped to meet patients’ needs.
• Patients had access to care and treatment when they needed it. Patients were usually able to make an urgent appointment or request a telephone consultation the same day. The practice was working to further improve access to non-urgent appointments.
• Procedures were in place to help keep patients safe and to protect them from harm.
• Patients felt listened to and able to raise concerns about the practice. Concerns were acted on to improve the service.
• Staff felt valued and well supported. The practice had a motivated staff team with appropriate knowledge and skills to enable them to carry out their work effectively. Staff were actively supported to acquire new skills to ensure high quality care.
• Systems were in place to assess and monitor the quality and safety of services that people received; although the clinical audit programme required developing to improve outcomes for patients.
• The services were well-led. The clinical leadership had been strengthened following the appointment of three salaried GPs, one of which was the clinical lead.
• The practice obtained and acted on patients views. The Patient Participation Group (PPG) worked in partnership with the practice to improve the services for patients.

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

In addition the provider should:

• Establish an on-going clinical audit programme linked to medicines information, safety alerts and significant events to improve outcomes for patients.
• Ensure that information available to patients enables them to understand the complaints process.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice