Archived: Grange Road Medical Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of Grange Road Medical Practice on 22 August 2017. 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 to report incidents and near misses. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised. However, we did not see any evidence of trends, themes and lessons learned from significant events or complaints being shared with the entire staff group.
• Risks to staff and patients were assessed and well managed. Staff had received a full range of appropriate training and there was no evidence of health and safety and fire risk assessments.
• The practice carried out clinical audit activity. However, none of the audits we saw demonstrated improvements to patient care as a result of the audit.
• The practice had a comprehensive recruitment policy and staff files we viewed confirmed that appropriate pre-employment checks had been completed.
• Feedback from patients about their care was positive compared to local and national averages. Patients reported that they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect.
• Patients were able to access same day appointments, including telephone consultations. Pre-bookable appointments were available within acceptable timescales.
• The practice had a number of policies and procedures to govern activity, which were easily accessible to staff.
• The practice sought feedback from patients and implemented suggestions for improvement and made changes to the way they delivered services in response to feedback.
• The practice used the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) as one method of monitoring effectiveness but had achieved an overall result which was lower than local and national averages. However, practice staff were able to provide an explanation for this and were committed to improvement.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.

However, there were areas where the provider should make improvements. Importantly, the provider should:

• Ensure that the practice’s clinical audit activity is used to drive improvements in patient care, outcomes and service quality.
• Educate staff on the existence of the practice business continuity plan and their responsibilities in relation to this.
• Ensure all staff are up to date with routine immunisations and that a record is kept of this.
• Provide carers with an annual health checks
• Ensure that the finding’s of the practice’s reviews of significant events and complaints are shared learning with the entire staff group.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice