Archived: Gillmoss Medical Centre

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Gillmoss Medical Centre on 15 April 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• The practice was tidy but some flooring and cleaning equipment needed replacing. Recommended guidance needed to be followed to ensure the standard of cleanliness in the building was maintained.

• The practice employed a company to assist them with risk assessments for health and safety requirements. However, there were no risk assessments in place to show how the practice could deal with certain medical emergencies in the absence of a defibrillator and certain medication. There were systems in place to mitigate safety risks including analysing significant events and safeguarding.

• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered in line with current legislation.

• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• Information about services and how to complain was available. The practice sought patient views about improvements that could be made to the service; including having a patient participation group (PPG) and acted, where possible, on feedback.

• The practice had been without a practice nurse for some time but had recently recruited a new nurse who had been in post for two weeks at the time of our inspection. Many of the administration staff had worked at the practice for a long time and knew the patients well. Staff worked well together as a team and all felt supported to carry out their roles.

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

The provider should:

• Carry out risk assessments to specify how the practice would deal with emergency situations without having certain emergency medications and a defibrillator available.

• Carry out an annual review of all incidents to analyse any trends.

• Replace vinyl flooring where necessary and cleaning equipment and follow relevant guidance to help improve the standard of cleanliness of the building.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice