Background to this inspection
Updated
23 January 2019
Stanmore House Surgery is located in Kidderminster. It provides primary medical services to patients living in Kidderminster and surrounding areas.
The practice has four GP partners and three salaried GPs (a mix of male and female GPs). The practice also has a practice manager, an Advanced Nurse Practitioner, two practice nurses, two healthcare assistants, reception and administrative staff and a practice based pharmacist. There were 9286 patients registered with the practice at the time of our inspection. The practice is open from 8am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday. Patients can access the service for appointments from 8am and on line booking is also available. The practice offers extended hours appointments until 8pm on a Tuesday.
The practice treats patients of all ages and provides a range of medical services. Stanmore House has a higher percentage of its practice population in the 65 and over age group than the England average. There were over 300 patients in care homes registered with the practice.
Stanmore House has a General Medical Services contract. The GMS contract is the contract between general practices and NHS England for delivering primary care services to local communities.
Stanmore House Surgery is an approved GP training practice. Fully qualified doctors who want to enter into general practice spend 12 months working at the practice to gain the experience they need to become a GP. At the time of the inspection the practice had one Foundation Year Two doctor.
The practice also teaches undergraduate medical students from the University of Birmingham. Patients have the option to see the trainees. Every consultation with a medical student is reviewed by a GP.
Updated
23 January 2019
This practice is rated as Outstanding overall. (Previous rating 04/2015– Good)
The key questions at this inspection are rated as:
Are services safe? – Outstanding
Are services effective? – Good
Are services caring? – Good
Are services responsive? – Outstanding
Are services well-led? - Good
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Stanmore House Surgery as part of our inspection programme.
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 recorded and learned from low, moderate and high risk incidents.
•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. The practice had carried out 17 audit cycles, including two and three cycle audits.
•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.
•There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.
• One of the GPs visited the local primary school to engage with the local community. The GP delivered sessions on Dermatology, Diabetes and healthy eating to raise awareness.
•The GPs would often do teaching sessions for the nurses at the practice on their day off. They had done talks on Thyroid disease and Hypertension amongst others to highlight current NICE guidance and upskill nurses. The nurses found the impact of these sessions very helpful when they carried out weekly ward rounds in the local care homes.
•The Advanced Nurse Practitioner at the practice did some training sessions at one of the local care homes for day staff and night staff. The teaching session was about verification of death. The intention was to confidently verify a death in house so that they did not have to call external agencies in which was kinder for bereaved families.
•The practice proactively identified carers and supported them. There were 316 carers registered with the practice which was 3% of the patient list.
We saw several areas of outstanding practice:
•The practice had an effective approach to managing safeguarding for children and vulnerable adults. This included having a clinical and non-clinical safeguarding lead and reviewing the notes of every new child and their family who registered at the practice. The practice reviewed the notes of all newly registered children and their household contacts every four weeks via a search on the computer system.
•The practice had a very robust system in place for monitoring patients on high risk medicines.
•The practice had an innovative way of dealing with external safety alerts. The practice manager had devised a system on the computer which was colour coded and ensured all clinicians saw every alert. The system also allowed clinicians to comment on the alerts.
•The GPs and other members of the team would walk with the “Stanmore Strollers." This helped to create a community feel and prevent isolation. There were two walking groups: one fast group and one slow group to allow for all abilities. The practice shared examples where patients had returned to this country after a number of years and the Stanmore Strollers helped them to find friends in the community again. They shared an example where a patient had been a carer to their parent. When the parent went in a nursing home they had felt isolated, now they often run the walking group. The practice allowed patients registered with other practices to register as Stanmore Strollers. They would go for refreshments to the local pub after their walk.
•The practice was rated top out of 65 surgeries in Worcestershire for their overall experience of the surgery in the national patient survey.
Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice
Please refer to the detailed report and the evidence tables for further information.