Archived: The Windmill Medical Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Windmill Medical Practice on 4 November 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events. The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the Duty of Candour.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• 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 was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs. However, space within the practice was limited and acted as a constraint on expansion. The practice was aiming to relocate in the long term.
• 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 is one area where the provider should make an improvement:

• The practice should develop its failsafe systems to alert the doctors within a set period when prescriptions remain uncollected.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

• The practice partners had identified good access to primary care as a priority and one of their ‘guiding principles’. One of the GP partners had developed a software programme to monitor patient access. The practice used this to predict changes in patient demand (using a ‘traffic light’ system for easy interpretation) and to plan the clinical staffing accordingly. The practice manager also reviewed the availability of appointments daily. The GPs put on additional clinical sessions when demand was rising to prevent delays from building up. Additional sessions were seen as a shared responsibility and allocated fairly between the partners. As a result, practice patients could obtain routine appointments within two to three days. The practice received excellent patient feedback on the accessibility of the service. For example, the national GP patient survey showed that the practice scored in the top 10% of practices nationally and the top five per cent of London practices for patients describing the experience of making an appointment as good.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice