Rosegrove Surgery

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Rosegrove Surgery on 15 December 2015. 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.
• Patients said they found it was generally easy to make an appointment with a named GP and that there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• 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.

We saw two areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice had well established links with a local refuge and provided healthcare support to individuals and families accessing refuge services.The refuge provided a safe and confidential place to stay for women and children to help them escape and overcome the effects of domestic abuse.As a result of practice activity, that included visiting the refuge to explain practice services at ‘in house’ meetings, residents were assisted to register and access person centred healthcare in a timely and appropriate manner.

• The practice had a shared service policy with a local drug recovery service provider to provide care to those with drug addiction problems.The practice was proactive in its approach to working with the drug recovery service and assisted them to hold fortnightly clinics in the practice that were accessible to patients from other practices.The lead practice GP for the shared service who had undertaken specific training associated with helping those with a drug addiction undertook regular joint review appointments every 6-9 months with a shared care worker and individual patients.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Ensure a programme of infection control audits is completed periodically to gain assurance associated activity is effective or identify areas for improvement.

• The need for additional role specific training should be assessed for individuals allocated lead responsibility for infection control.

• Review and maintain policies to ensure they are accurate and specific to the practice.

• Provide staff with additional training and enforce compliance with policy to reduce information security risks associated with the use of IT smart-cards.

• Maintain records of individuals that have completed chaperone training.

• Develop and implement a policy to support the consistent completion and recording of medication reviews.

• Ensure systems are implemented to monitor expiration dates of single use equipment.

• Maintain a record of checks of fire detection systems and carry out regular fire drills.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice