CQC rate Lancaster GP practice as Outstanding

England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has rated the Lancaster Medical Practice as Outstanding following an inspection in August.

Inspectors have rated the practice as Good for safety and caring and Outstanding for effectiveness, responsiveness and Well-led. This gives the service its overall rating of Outstanding.

Read the report

Some of the findings from the report include:

• The practice had been through a merger of four surgeries to form one large practice of 55,000 patients and used an assessment tool to understand the culture and values of staff at each of the four legacy practices and were able to determine the desired cultural values for the merged practice.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect and all of the 167 staff at the practice had completed mandatory training and had received an appraisal in the past 12 months.
• Group consultations had been trialled at the practice to assist patients following treatment for cancer. The nurse leading the consultations used the Macmillan concerns checklist to gauge patients’ wellbeing and found that each of the patients reported a more positive outlook following the intervention.
• Patients with a learning disability were given a “hospital passport”. This contained important information which would be helpful to clinicians in the event of the patient being admitted to hospital and being unable tocommunicate their needs or concerns.

Alison Holbourn, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice for the North, said:

“This is an excellent report for a surgery that treats a wide of patients including students from Lancaster University, city centre locations and a number of outlying villages.

“I was encouraged to see that patients with long-term conditions had a structured annual review to check their health and medicines needs were being met. For patients with the most complex needs, the GP worked with other health and care professionals to deliver a coordinated package ofcare.

“We identified many areas of outstanding practice. We could see that staff worked together and with other health and social care professionals to deliver effective care and treatment and saw records that showed that all appropriate staff, including those in different teams and organisations, were involved in assessing, planning and delivering care and treatment

“I congratulate the practice on their Outstanding rating. It is clear that through their innovative methods, The Lancaster Practice is delivering first class healthcare ”