The Care Quality Commission has found the quality of care provided by The Surgery, Great Lumley, County Durham to be Outstanding following an inspection carried out in August 2016.
Inspectors rated the practice as Outstanding for caring, well-led and responsiveness, and Good for safety and caring. A full report of the inspection has been published.
Under CQC’s programme of inspections, all England’s GP practices are being given a rating according to whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led.
Kindness and compassion was fundamental to the practice ethos and inspectors were told that patients were at the centre of what they did. This was corroborated by patient survey results, what we were told by patients on the day and via completed questionnaires.
When practice and reception staff knew patients wanted to discuss sensitive issues or appeared distressed they could offer them a private room to discuss their needs. Inspectors were told that vulnerable or elderly patients living alone were regularly taken home by staff members to ensure their safety.
CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice in the North, Alison Holbourn says:
“This is an excellent practice, prepared to use innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes through working with other local providers to share best practice. For example it funded care for pre-diabetic patients and performed reviews on these patients in order to prevent disease progression. They’d provided this service for two years.
“It has a strong focus on its patients and population groups. Indeed, of the six population groups we assess against, the practice was rated Outstanding in all six.
“The practice was above average for its satisfaction scores on consultations with GPs and nurses. For example; 100% of patients said the GP was good at listening to them; 100% of patients said the GP gave them enough time and 99% of patients said the last nurse they spoke to was good at treating them with care and concern.
“This is, very evidently, a service that is going the extra mile, delivering services in a kind and compassionate way. From all that we witnessed the efforts being made by all that work at The Surgery, Great Lumley, is clearly paying off which is why we have found this practice to be Outstanding.”
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This is an excellent practice, prepared to use innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes through working with other local providers to share best practice.
Alison Holbourn, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice in the North