17 December 2014
During a routine inspection
Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
We inspected Christmas Maltings and Clements Surgery on 17 December 2014, as part of our new, comprehensive inspection programme.
The overall rating for this practice is good. We found the practice to be safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. The quality of care experienced by older people, by people with long term conditions and by families, children and young people is good. Working age people, those in vulnerable circumstances and people experiencing poor mental health also receive good quality care.
Our key findings were as follows:
- All of the patients we spoke with told us they were involved in decisions about their care and treatment and many complimented the quality of the clinical care they received.
- Faced with a national shortage of GPs, the practice had adopted alternative ways to meet patients' needs. This included employing a nurse practitioner and an emergency care practitioner.
- The practice had implemented new initiatives in order to respond to patient demand and the effectiveness of new processes was continually monitored.
- We found the practice was clean and patients we spoke with told us they had no concerns about cleanliness or hygiene at the practice.
However, there were also areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.
The provider should:
- The practice recruitment policy should include the arrangements for undertaking criminal records checks using the Disclosure and Barring service for clinical and non clinical staff.
- Ensure that staff acting as chaperones understand their responsibilities when undertaking that role.
- Ensure that blank prescription forms are kept securely, so they cannot be accessed by unauthorised people.
- Ensure that information is available informing patients that they can ask to speak to the receptionist in private, if necessary.
- Ensure that the induction programme completed by new staff to the practice is documented.
- Consider whether there is scope to widen and further embed learning through improved record keeping around significant events.
Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice