CQC’s new programme of inspections of England based GP practices focuses on rating according to whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led. Inspectors rated St Ann’s Road Surgery “Good” for being well led and responsive to people’s needs.
Professor Steve Field, Chief Inspector of General Practice said “We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at St Ann’s Road Surgery on 31 October 2017. Overall the practice was rated as Good.”
The findings were as follows:
- The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.
- The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
- Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
- Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that they were able to access care when they needed it.
- Information about services and how to complain was available.
- Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
- The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
- The practice had strong and visible clinical and managerial leadership and governance arrangements.
- There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.
- The practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes and worked with other local and national healthcare providers to share best practice.
- The practice used information technology systems to monitor and improve the quality of care. The electronic dashboard used across the provider group was an effective tool for understanding the practice’s comparative performance across a range of clinical indicators and had provided access to bespoke searches relevant to medicines management and effective care. This enabled the practice to readily identify when follow up tests and screening were due in the management of patients with long term conditions.
- The practice had used innovative and proactive methods to assure effective communication across the organisation. For example, the practice had initiated an online networking tool to share learning, information, ideas including social events and peer support. The provider was using this online tool to monitor the performance and utilising the resources, such as, managing the winter pressure or when the demand increased for appointments. The provider had sent the weekly and monthly staff bulletins. This provided them with any information about the practice including clinical updates, staffing matters, training opportunities and any changes within the practice group. An interactive on-line messaging system, ‘message my GP’ was available for patients to direct non-urgent queries to a GP with a response turnaround of up to 48 hours.
- Staff had access to a learning and development portfolio featuring face-to-face and web-based training programs tailored for each staff role. For example, fortnightly web-based training for healthcare assistants; development support for practice nurses; a development programme for practice managers and pharmacists and a fortnightly consultant led learning program for clinicians.