Westbourne Medical Centre

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Westbourne Medical Centre on 6 May 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

It was also good for providing services for older people, people with long term conditions, families children and young people, working age people (including those recently retired and students), people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable and people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia).

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

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. Information about safety was recorded, monitored, appropriately reviewed and addressed.
• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance.
• Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.
• 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 the management team.
• The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
• The practice had, where appropriate, given homeless patients a copy of their summary care record which they could share with any other GP they visited whilst travelling.

However there were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements

Importantly the provider should:

• Ensure staff have completed training in the Mental Capacity Act 2005.
• Ensure that details of the practice’s chaperone policy are prominently displayed.
• Take due care and attention to not sharing information inappropriately. There should be a risk assessment in place in relation to the access to patient records.

• Review the risk assessment to determine which staff require a Disclosure and Barring Service check (DBS) in line with up to date guidance, which requires all clinical staff (including healthcare assistants) to have a DBS check.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice