Dr Peter Linn Also known as Angel Lane Surgery

Updated 19 April 2018

Dr Peter Linn’s (also known as Angel Lane Surgery) service is located in a semi-rural market town serving neighbouring communities such as Felsted, High Easter, Stebbing and Little Easton. The practicehas a General Medical Services (GMS) contract with the NHS.

• There are approximately 10429 patients registered at the practice.
• The practice provides services from Angel Lane, Dunmow, Essex.
• The practice is registered with the Care Quality Commission as apartnership, there are 32 employees with six GP’s (three male and three female GP’s) and Registrars. A GP Registrar or GP trainee is a qualified doctor who is training to become a GP through a period of working and training in a practice.
• The practice is a dispensing practice, which means that patients who do not have a dispensing chemist within a 1.6km radius of their house can get their prescribed medicines dispensed from here.
• The practice is open from Monday to Friday between the hours of 8am and 6.30pm. The GP appointments are available between 9am to 5.30pm on Monday to Friday.
• Pre-bookable evening and weekend appointments can be booked by the practice via the West Essex Hub.
• The practice has opted out of providing out-of-hours services to their own patients. Emergency medical attention between 6:30pm and 8am weekends and bank holidays is provided by contacting the NHS 111 service in the first instance.
• National data indicates that people living in the area are ninth least deprived in comparison to England as a whole.
• The practice provides services for a higher percentage of patients aged 65 and above compared with the local and national averages.
• The practice has a comprehensive website providing a wealth of information for patients to understand and access services, including useful links to specialist support services.

Updated 19 April 2018

This practice is rated as Good overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? - Good

As part of our inspection process, we also look at the quality of care for specific population groups. The population groups are rated as:

Older People – Good

People with long-term conditions – Good

Families, children and young people – Good

Working age people (including those recently retired and students – Good

People whose circumstances may make them vulnerable – Good

People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia) - Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr Peter Linn’s on 16 March 2018. We carried out a comprehensive inspection of this service under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. The inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014

At this inspection we found:

• 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.
• National data showed that the practice was performing in line with national averages for all indicators. However the practice had a higher exception reporting rate than the national averages for some indicators.
• The practice involved patients in regular reviews of their medicines. In some cases we found patients had not had a medicine review within the recommended time scale.
• We found the practice had appropriate systems in place to monitor cold chain however they were unable to monitor medicine temperatures that were kept at room temperature. Since the inspection the practice have installed a thermometer to monitor room temperature.
• 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.
• Staff had received mandatory training applicable to their role. However the infection prevention control lead had not carried out any role specific training pertinent to the lead role.
• The practice provided staff with ongoing support. Although most members of the practice team had appraisals within the last 12 months, we found one member of the nursing team who had been at the practice for 18 months had not received an appraisal.
• There was sufficient and appropriate equipment for use in the treatment of patients, including in the event of a medical emergency and the equipment was calibrated to ensure it was working correctly.
• Staff we spoke with on the day said although they had individual team meetings they would benefit from having regular practice meetings to ensure general information and shared learning is cascaded regularly.
• The practice had identified 1.2% of its practice list as carers by highlighting them during registration and during clinical consultations.
• The practice was clean and tidy and staff had reviewed infection prevention control and policies.
• Data from the national GP patient survey published in July 2017 showed patients rated the practice in line with or higher than others for all aspects of care.
• The practice was aware of their patient population needs and their preferences and worked to accommodate them.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement for the GP team. However we found there was no plan for staff development for administration or nursing staff members.
• Patients spoke highly of the care they had received from the entire team at the surgery.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Continue to establish effective systems to ensure medicine reviews are conducted and documented in line with standard practice.
• Review levels of exception reporting.
• Review processes to ensure all staff receive appraisals necessary to support them to carry out their duties and to encourage future development.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Updated 19 April 2018

Updated 19 April 2018

Updated 19 April 2018

Updated 19 April 2018

Updated 19 April 2018

Updated 19 April 2018