Archived: Salford Health Matters Little Hulton

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Salford Health Matters Little Hulton on 08 December 2015. 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.

• The practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes, working with other local providers to share best practice.

• Feedback from patients about their care was consistently and strongly positive.

• The practice worked closely with other organisations and with the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure that they meet people’s needs.

• 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.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs. Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand
• The practice had a clear vision which had quality and safety as its top priority. The strategy to deliver this vision had been produced with stakeholders and was regularly reviewed and discussed with staff.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

• The practice had a vascular long term conditions management process system. This allows the practice to provide a holistic review for patients with multiple vascular conditions.

• The practice had a children’s service which was known as The Salford Children’s Community Partnership. This was a service that allowed parents to take sick children that presented with acute symptoms to the practice for treatment and advice. The service had facilities to admit children and monitor them for a period of time and this service was open to five other GP surgeries across the Little Hulton area.

• The practice worked closely with City West Housing Trust and assisted in identifying houses that may pose as health risks to tenants due to damp issues.

• There was a strong focus on staff professional development. All staff received 360 degree feedback regardless of what level they were within the organisation, and all staff had received dementia awareness training.

• The practice was in the process of setting up a ‘virtual ward’ for improving the care of older patients. Patients would be contacted by telephone each day. The virtual ward was able to offer a chronic long term condition management plan, as well as a physiotherapy management plan. Home visits could also be arranged depending on the health needs of the patient.

• The practice is a participator in the ‘Safe haven’ scheme which is for patients that have been previously removed from primary care due to an incident of violence. The scheme is designed to help rehabilitate patients back into primary care.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice