Archived: The Practice Canberra

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out a comprehensive inspection of The Practice Canberra on 8 October 2014. We rated the practice as ‘Good’ for the service being safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led. We rated the practice as ‘Good’ for the care provided to older people and people with long term conditions and ‘Good’ for the care provided to, families, children and young people, working age people (including those recently retired and students), people living in vulnerable circumstances and people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia).

We gave the practice an overall rating of ‘Good.'

Our key findings were as follows:

• Patients were positive about the practice and services provided. They were happy with the opening hours and flexible appointment system.
• Patients said that staff were welcoming, caring and treated them with dignity and respect and the GPs involved them in decisions about their treatment and care.
• Systems were in place to keep patients safe including incident reporting protocols, safeguarding and infection control procedures.
• Staff were appropriately qualified to deliver effective care and treatment in line with NICE guidance.
• The practice had a clear vision and strategy to address health inequalities in the local community and staff worked as a team to achieve this.
• The practice proactively sought feedback from patients and used it to make improvements to the services provided.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

• The practice offered an innovative service for 120 homeless people working with a homeless charity.
• Excellent access to the practice with 8:00am to 8:00pm opening hours on a weekday and Saturday morning appointments.
• Ring fenced appointments for vulnerable patients.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice