A WEST Devon health centre has been given a rating of ‘Good’ by inspectors following a recent assessment of the practice.

Staff at Tavyside Health Centre in Tavistock were pleased after an inspection by the Quality Care Commission found the centre to be good overall.

In the report, Professor Steve Field, chief inspector for general practice, said: ‘Overall the practice is rated as good. Specifically, we found the practice to be outstanding for being well led. The practice was good for providing effective, caring and responsive services.

‘There were areas of the safe domain which require improvement. It was outstanding for providing services for vulnerable people.

‘The practice was good for providing services to older people and people with mental health needs, including dementia, people with long term conditions, families, babies, children and young people and working age people.’

The report states that patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.

It said the practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.

There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management.

It also stated that the practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.

Inspectors found the centre to show outstanding practise in its innovative support of vulnerable people and innovation at involving the patients’ association to hold health promotion events every few months.

It said: ‘The practice had a clear vision and strategy. There was a strong collaboration and support across all the staff and a common focus on improving quality of care and people’s experiences.’

The centre was found to require improvement in the ‘Are services safe?’ category, specifically it needs to establish and operate effective recruitment procedures to ensure that information regarding pre-employment checks is kept.

The report said: ‘Recruitment practises required improvement to ensure that staff were fit to work at the practice or safe to carry out chaperone duties.’

Under CQC’s new programme of inspections, all of England’s GP practices are being given a rating according to whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led.

Professor Field said: ‘We know that the vast majority of England’s GPs are providing a service which is safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led.

‘If that is what we find on inspection, we give it a rating of good and I congratulate the GPs and staff in these practices.

‘Patients should be able to expect high quality and consistent care from every GP practice. Where we have required improvement, we will expect the practice to take the necessary steps to address the issue and we will return at a later date to check that those improvements have been made.’

A spokesperson from Tavyside Health Centre said: ‘We at Tavyside Health Centre are pleased to have been awarded a Good rating overall, with two Outstanding observations. One section only was identified as requiring improvement and this concerned updating some aspects of procedures relating to staff records.

‘The process accompanying the inspection was rigorous and we hope that the outcome is reassuring for all our patients.’