Archived: Netherton Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Netherton Practice. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing effective, caring, responsive and well-led services. The practice required improvement for providing safe services.

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

• Staff were aware of procedures for reporting significant events and safeguarding patients from risk of abuse. There were appropriate systems in place to protect patients from the risks associated with equipment, the safety of the premises, recruitment of staff and infection control. Improvements were needed to the processes in place to ensure all safety incidents were analysed, appropriately recorded and lessons learned shared with all relevant staff to mitigate future risk. The security arrangements for managing prescriptions needed improvement. The systems in place for safeguarding adults and children needed to be improved to ensure patient safety was effectively promoted. Greater continuity of GP staffing was needed to ensure effective communication between GPs and ensure effective patient care. Clear information on who locum GPs should contact if there is a clinical issue they need support with was not available.

• Patients care needs were assessed and care and treatment was being considered in line with best practice national guidelines. Referrals were made to other agencies to ensure patients received the treatments they needed. Improvements were needed to the systems for monitoring referrals made. The website for the practice contained no health promotion information for patients to refer to.

• Feedback from patients showed they were overall happy with the care given by all staff. They felt listened to, treated with dignity and respect and involved in decision making around their care and treatment.

• The practice responded to the needs of its population groups. The practice encouraged patients to give their views about the services offered and made changes as a consequence. Information about the types of appointments available should be better publicised.

• There were systems in place to review quality and performance and steps had been taken to make these systems more effective.

The areas where the provider must make improvements are:

• Improvements need to be made to the security of prescriptions.

• Improvements need to be made for the systems for safeguarding adults and children. Robust systems for managing requests for reports for safeguarding meetings from the local authority need to be introduced.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Improvements should be made to the processes for managing significant events to ensure all events are recorded and to ensure any learning arising from the investigation of an event is consistently shared with all relevant staff and GPs who do not regularly work at the practice.

• Confidential information relating to safeguarding should be held securely

• Make improvements to the continuity of GPs employed at the practice to promote effective communication between clinical staff and continuity of care for patients. Ensure that a contact person for lone working GPs to approach for support around clinical issues or safety incidents is clearly available for staff to refer to.

• Review referrals to ensure all referrals of patients with suspected cancer are seen within two weeks.

• Ensure that patients have suitable access to information about all services available at the practice, such as the different types of appointments and health promotion information.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice