11 July 2016
During a routine inspection
Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Bridgewater Family Medical Practice on 11 July 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.
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.
- Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
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Risks to patients and staff were comprehensively assessed and well managed.
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Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.
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Patients spoke of a very high level of service that was supported by a large quantity of complimentary written patient feedback. 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.
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Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
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Patients told us they could get an appointment when they needed one. Urgent appointments were available the same day.
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The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
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The Advanced Nurse Practitioner and Clinical Pharmacist provided home visits to care home patients and had completed additional training in order to complete advanced care planning for these patients.
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There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management.
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The practice proactively sought feedback from staff, patients and third party organisations, which it acted on.
- Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment, patients with a named GP or preferred to see a specific GP saw them within a reasonable period of time, there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)
Chief Inspector of General Practice