Archived: Bampton Surgery

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Bampton Surgery on 19 November 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• 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 and easy to understand.
• Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and that there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the Duty of Candour.
• Clinical staff knew their patients very well and offered good continuity of care.

We saw some areas of outstanding practice:

• Services for older people were tailored to individual need, for example with detailed, regularly reviewed care plans for people with serious illnesses and/or palliative care considerations.

• The practice had initiated additional support for dementia patients by liaising with a local charity to jointly fund and start a weekly cognitive stimulation therapy group.

• The uptake of childhood immunisations was excellent, with staff conversing with families to promote childhood vaccination programmes.

• Medicines reviews for patients were performed six monthly as standard at the practice to ensure prescribing was appropriate and safe and patients received the most effective treatment based on their diagnosis.

• Appointments were readily available. There were standard 15 minute appointments (the norm is 10 minutes) to allow time to listen to patients and involve them in their care. Longer appointments were available for complex needs or annual health checks.

• The practice had adapted and developed a range of templates with reference to NICE guidelines. This standardised care across the practice and ensured patients received a comprehensive and holistic review of long-term health conditions.

• Patient satisfaction with the practice was very high across the board with indicators such as appointment access, considerate care and treatment, when compared with both the local CCG and national averages.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Provide all GPs with child safeguarding training to the recommended level three.

• Seek reassurances that practice nurses are aware of the practice’s Mental Capacity Act (MCA) (2005) protocol, and review the provision of MCA training where relevant to their roles.

• Consider the appropriateness of risk assessing staff working unsupervised out of practice hours in relation to the storage of confidential patient paper records.

• Consider how to better engage with pregnant women with the loss of some community midwifery services.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice