Archived: Vale Drive Medical Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Vale Drive Medical Practice on 9th June 2016. Overall the practice is rated as requires improvement.

• Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows: The partners had a vision and a strategy but not all staff were aware of this and their responsibilities in relation to it. However there was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management.

• The practice had a number of policies and procedures to govern activity, but several needed to be reviewed and updated. For example, the complaints policy, recruitment policy and the health and safety policy.
• Staff understood their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. However, the system used to record and report safety concerns, incidents and near misses was inconsistent.

• The processes in place for managing risk were not always robust. The calibration of some clinical equipment had taken place but not all the necessary items had been tested or had had a risk assessment carried out.

• The learning needs of staff were not fully understood. The practice provided only limited mandatory training for staff, e-learning was not available.Individual training records we saw were incomplete and did not reflect the information we were told by staff.

• The Patient Group Directives had been signed by the nurse but not signed by the authorised person..

• Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• The practice was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.

• Staff worked with other health care professionals and other local providers to understand and meet the range and complexity of patients’ needs.

The areas where the provider must make improvements are:

• Review and update policies and procedures, to include recruitment, complaints, and health and safety.
• Review its incident and significant event policies to ensure that reporting and recording systems are being used to identify risks and continuously improve patient safety.
• Ensure that all appropriate medical equipment is annually calibrated.
• Implement a system for assessing, monitoring and recording the training needs of staff and ensure that all staff have completed professional and mandatory training.Ensure that appropriately signed Patient Group Directives are on file to enable practice nurses to legally administer medicines in line with legislation.

In addition the provider should:

• Provide patient information regarding the services available, for example the interpreting service and local bereavement service.Facilitate regular patient participation group meetings

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice