Marazion Surgery

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Marazion Surgery on 3 March 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

We found the practice to be good for providing safe, responsive and effective and well led services. It was also good for providing services for older people, people with long term conditions, families, children and young people, working age people including those recently retired and students, people who were vulnerable and those experiencing poor mental health and those with dementia.

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

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. Information about safety was recorded, monitored, appropriately reviewed and addressed at team meetings.

• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.

• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.

• Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and that there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day. For patients unable to visit the practice nursing staff from the practice delivered care to housebound patients in their homes.

• 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 areas of outstanding practice:

The practice had reviewed patients taking medicines that were affected by the new law on driving after taking certain medicines. The Drug Driving Specified Limits Amendment Regulations 2015 came into force on 2 March 2015. This new offence covers driving with certain controlled drugs, including some prescription drugs and a number of over the counter medicines, above specified limits. They had written to the patients making sure that they were aware of the new ruling and invited patients to arrange for a telephone consultation if they had any concerns

The practice was accredited with Level 3 EEFO status. EEFO is a word that has been designed by young people, to be owned by young people. EEFO works with other community services to make sure they were young people friendly. Once a service had been EEFO approved it meant that service had met the quality standards. For example, confidentiality and consent, easy to access services, welcoming environment and staff trained on the issues young people face to face. Part of this scheme was the use of a green card. This allowed for a young person to be seen on the same day by a GP.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice