At Best Practice, we are eager to share successes across primary care. We are thrilled that Leeds GP Confederation has chosen our platform to share their achievement as well as the lessons learnt from their ‘Outstanding’ CQC inspection. Please read below to hear about the steps taken by the Confederation to achieve such fantastic results.

You can also find speakers from Leeds GP Confederation at Best Practice London 28-29 February at Olympia, London. Discussing the ‘Innovative management of shared care for patients on the ADHD pathway’ and ‘Integrated training for nurses.’

We are delighted that CQC have awarded Leeds GP Confederation services an overall ‘Outstanding’ rating after their inspection conducted in September 2023. The inspection report also awarded us ‘Outstanding’ in both the well-led and effectiveness of our services, reporting that the organisation showed a ‘culture of high-quality, sustainable care.’

This substantial achievement is the result of the first CQC inspection since the organisation was formed in 2018, and all our hard work in the past 5 years has led up to this point. Jane Sadler, Head of Operations and CQC Registered Manager said, “our whole team is dedicated to delivering high quality, safe and compassionate care to all our patients across all our services. To achieve this recognition from the CQC makes me proud of our amazing team and being able to support the wider health economy in Leeds.”

CQC stated that they found an ‘open and transparent culture’ which staff spoke highly of, with many staff saying ‘they enjoyed coming to work and that it was the best place they had worked.’

The flexibility of our services, and our determination to reduce the demand that our member Primary Care Networks (PCNs) face was key to achieving our outstanding rating. Through our Enhanced Access (EA) service we deliver additional appointments to Leeds GP Practices on evenings and weekends. Allowing patients to access appointments with a range of healthcare professionals at a time and location suitable for them. For instance, we support practices with their Long-Acting Reversible Contraception (LARC) waiting lists, delivering 2,194 LARC procedures in EA clinics from July 2022 to June 2023.

To reach our ‘Outstanding’ rating, CQC noted that individualised service level agreements were in place for each PCN, giving them the flexibility to utilise the EA service in response to challenges faced in their locality. For example, when one PCN required additional capacity to support uptake of childhood immunisations, we implemented the appropriate standard operating procedures to enable appointments to be offered via the EA service.

We champion a strong culture of innovation, evidenced by many of our services including the development of our respiratory services. Our highly commended Community Ambulatory Paediatric Service (CAPS) was launched in January 2023 to help manage paediatric presentations, specifically children with acute respiratory symptoms. The vision, to improve access for children most in need, support General Practice with acute demand, reduce unnecessary hospital attendances and admissions, provide a pathway out of hospital for acute asthma follow up, and ultimately improve outcomes and experience for children and their families.

A year later CAPS is known as an exemplar community service that improves access for those most in need. System feedback from primary and secondary care prove that the vision to support Primary Care with demand and reduce unnecessary hospital attendances has been achieved. The service was originally set to run until March 2023, but due to its success West Yorkshire ICB commissioned the service to run year-round. Thanks to CAPS outcomes, November saw us launch the Adult Ambulatory Respiratory Clinic (AARC), for adults in Leeds presenting with acute respiratory symptoms.

If we could give one point that has made the biggest impact on our services, leading to our ‘Outstanding’ result, it would be this; collaboration. Organisations often talk about collaborative partnerships, and the development and success of our services are the epitome of this. For example, in developing CAPS we collectively had input from providers in Leeds spanning emergency, primary, secondary and community care – which was the perfect partnership to develop a service that has such a positive impact on the resilience of our local healthcare system, and of course, our patients.

If you would like to explore how Leeds GP Confederation can help you with your CQC success, please contact us at leeds.confed@nhs.net Learn more about our services by visiting leedsgpconfederation.org.uk or by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.