The Care Quality Commission
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Archived: Sid Valley Practice

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Sidmouth Health Centre, Blackmore Drive, Sidmouth, Devon, EX10 8ET (01395) 512601

Provided and run by:
Sid Valley Practice

All Inspections

15/04/2015

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We inspected Sid Valley Practice on 15th April 2015 as part of our comprehensive inspection programme.

We have rated the practice overall as providing a good service. Specifically we found the practice to be good for providing responsive safe, effective, caring and well led services.

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

  • Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.
  • Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment. Information was provided to help patients understand the care available to them.
  • There were arrangements in place to respond to the protection of children and vulnerable adults and to respond to any significant events affecting patients’ well-being.
  • The practice worked well with other health care service to enable a multi-disciplinary approach in meeting the health care needs of patients receiving a service from the practice.
  • The practice managed complaints well and took them seriously. Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand.
  • There was a clear management structure with approachable leadership. Staff were supported and had opportunities for developing their skills, were well supported and had good training opportunities. Sid Valley Practice is a training practice, with two GP partners approved to provide vocational training for GPs, second year post qualification doctors and medical students.
  • The practice implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way it
  • delivered services as a consequence of feedback from patients and from the Patient Participation Group (PPG).
  • The practice premises is an old building with facilities that need improving. However the practice managed well and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
  • The practice had a vision and informal set of values which were understood by staff. There were clear clinical governance systems and a clear leadership structure in place.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

30 July 2014

During an inspection in response to concerns

We, the CQC inspected the service because of a number of anonymous concerns we had received over the last 8 months. The concerns related to the management, recruitment, training and staffing of administration and clerical staff at the practice. We also received concerning information about an increase in complaints, lack of confidentiality and difficulty for patients to make appointments. There were no concerns about clinical care being received.

To get to the heart of patients' experiences of care, we always ask the following five questions of every GP practice: Is it safe? Is it effective? Is it caring? Is it responsive to people's needs? Is it well-led?

The practice was caring, effective and responsive. The practice was safe but improvements must be made to make recruitment processes more robust. The practice was well led but improvements to the management processes should be improved to ensure the vision and values are followed more effectively.

The management of clerical and administration staff worked effectively. There were sufficient numbers of clerical and administration staff in place and these staff were positive about their roles, the training and the support they received.

The practice was responsive and had listened to staff, patients and feedback from a recent increase in complaints about the telephone system. Patients we spoke with were happy about the appointment system and methods of confidentiality at the practice.