Archived: Hilton Road Surgery

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Hilton Road Surgery on 21 July 2015. Overall the practice is rated as requires improvement.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing well-led, caring and responsive services. However it was rated as requires improvement for safe and effective services. It was rated as good for providing services for all population groups other than for the care of people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable where they are rated as requires improvement.

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. Most information about safety was recorded, monitored, appropriately reviewed and addressed.
• The majority of 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 was available and easy to understand.
• Patients said they found the appointment system very accessible.
• The practice had adequate facilities and was equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.

There were areas of outstanding practice.

• We found there was outstanding practice to support women, where English was not their first language, to access cervical screening and improve cervical screening uptake. Cervical screening rates at the practice were 85% slightly above the national average of 81.88%. The practice had also developed a health champion role and weekly drop-in clinics had been implemented for women to discuss health topics such as cervical screening. (Practice Health Champions are people who voluntarily give their time to work with the staff in their local GP Practice or surgery to find new ways to improve the services that the practice offered and to help to meet the health needs of patients and the wider community).

However there were areas of practice where the provider should make improvements.

• It was not clear if information from external sources such as National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) was disseminated to relevant staff and that appropriate action had been taken.
• Patients at risk were not routinely highlighted on the electronic patient record system.
• Records did not show if clinical staff had undertaken recommended level three training in safeguarding children.
• Staff registration with the appropriate professional body was checked upon employment but was not checked on an annual basis to ensure that registration had not lapsed.
• There was a lack of evidence that the prevalence of some diseases had been assessed in order to show they were identifying all patients with long term conditions.
• The practice had not carried out annual health checks for people with a learning disability.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice