Archived: Collingwood Medical Group

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Collingwood Medical Group on 24 January 2017 and 4 February 2017. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

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

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. Lessons were learned when incidents and near misses occurred.
• 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.
• Some patients said they found it difficult to make a routine appointment with a GP. Urgent appointments were available on the same day.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• There was a clear leadership structure at the practice. Staff told us that the last year had been stressful due to the large number of staff changes but that the deputy group managers supporting the practice had been very supportive.
• The practice had comprehensive policies and procedures governing their activities and there were good systems in place to monitor and improve quality.
• The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
• Information about services and how to complain was available on the practice website and easy to understand.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour regulation.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

• The practice had introduced a weekly ward round at a local care home for patients with advanced dementia over three years ago. A lead GP visited the care home each Thursday morning. As part of these visits, care plans were reviewed and family members were able to speak to the GP if they wished too. The aim was to improve the care of patients who lived in care home and ensure continuity of care. The same GP visited these care homes each week and a buddy system was used to ensure continuity of care. Other practices in the group had adopted this approach. Feedback from the care home was very positive and they told us that families appreciated how easy it was to speak to a GP regularly.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Continue to monitor and review access to appointments and the telephone system currently in operation.
• Introduce a system to monitor the general cleaning at the practice.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice