Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
East Leicester Medical Practice provides a range of primary medical services to approximately 13,000 patients from their surgery at Uppingham Road Health Centre,131 Uppingham Road, Leicester.
We carried out a comprehensive inspection on 4 November 2014.
During the inspection we spoke with patients that used the practice and met with members of the patient participation group (PPG). A PPG is a group of patients who have volunteered to represent patients' views and concerns and are seen as an effective way for patients and GP surgeries to work together to improve services and to promote health and improved quality of care. We also reviewed comments cards that had been provided by CQC on which patients could record their views.
The overall rating for this practice is good. We also found the practice to be good in the safe, effective, caring and well led domains. We found the practice required improvement in the responsive domain and also required improvement in the care they provided to the population groups of older people, people with long term conditions, working age people, people experiencing poor mental health and people in vulnerable circumstances.
Our key findings were as follows:
- Evidence we reviewed demonstrated that most patients were satisfied with how they were treated and this was with compassion, dignity and respect. The information also demonstrated that the GPs were good at listening to patients and treated them with care and concern.
- The practice had on-going issues relating to maintenance of the premises which were owned by NHS Property Services. They had been in negotiations for some time to secure a tenancy agreement and hoped that this would soon be finalised and responsibilities relating to maintenance defined and agreed.
- The practice had robust arrangements in place to manage emergencies. Staff had received relevant training and there was equipment available for staff to use in the event of an emergency. Emergency medicines were available and all staff knew of their location.
- The practice had achieved and implemented the gold standards framework for end of life care. It had a palliative care register and had regular multi-disciplinary meetings to discuss the care and support needs of patients and their families.
- The practice had recognised that there was a lack of patient satisfaction in respect of access to appointments and telephone access to the practice. They had recently managed to recruit new GPs and told us this would increase appointment availability. The practice had been working with the PPG to address the issue of telephone access and had plans in place to increase the number of staff available to answer calls at the busiest times of the day.
- There was clear leadership with all staff being aware of their role and responsibilities. There was a strong team ethos and staff felt well supported and valued.
There were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.
The provider should :
- improve access to appointments.
- ensure patients have appropriate telephone access to the practice.
- ensure that privacy curtains are replaced at least every six months.
- ensure that an up to date legionella risk assessment is in place.
- have in place generic risk assessments relating to health and safety.
- ensure that all outstanding actions from the infection control audit are completed.
- ensure all policies are reviewed and updated.
- ensure that minutes of all meetings are more comprehensive and include actions and required follow up where relevant.
Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)
Chief Inspector of General Practice