QUICK START SERVICE

Whilst achieving compliance with Health & Safety legislation, Best Practice and CQC is made easy with the GP Health & Safety Pack …….  the QUICK START SERVICE makes getting started faster and even more hassle-free! 
 
Whether starting with a Pack for the first time or updating an older version after a lapse of a few years as often happens, the Quick Start Service has been described by one (very happy) Practice Manager as:
 
“A life saver!  With a CQC visit in a fortnight and your very fast Quick Start Service, all we had to do was make a few final changes and like magic we had our complete H&S Policy Document.  It and our surgery passed our inspection with flying colours – thank you!”
 
Our personal knowledge of how Primary Care works and the experience gained from working with surgeries around the UK ensures any issues that arise are easily resolved.  The aim is always to achieve practical solutions that take into account the needs and resources of both individuals and Practices.  The Quick Start Service process is as follows:-
 
STAGE 1  INFORMATION GATHERING
Your advisor will telephone the person responsible for the day-to-day management of Health & Safety to establish initial information about the Practice and premises (e.g. do you have a lift or a dispensary?).  A discussion will then follow about who it is proposed be responsible for which Health & Safety tasks, topics and issues.  Supplementary calls are never a problem as further consultation/s are often required particularly if new ways of working suggested by the advisor are to be implemented.
 
STAGE 2  CUSTOMISATION
All the Pack's ‘B’ template Policies, forms and checklists will then be customised and sent to the Practice in draft for agreement and return.  Even at this late stage, your advisor will be happy to implement further changes - however drastic - if it appears there are better ways of doing things, staff change or responsibilities need to be reallocated. 
 
STAGE 3  ACTION PLANNING AND HANDOVER
Hard copies of the customised Policies, templates and forms are printed off to be sent to the Practice with the electronically saved versions on a CD or memory stick.  Individual Action Plans are also compiled for staff with Health & Safety responsibilities including:-

• Details of the relevant Sections of the Supplemental to be read to ensure ‘competence’ and confidence.
• Cross-referencing to the completed Questionnaire to ensure nothing is overlooked or forgotten and that progress can easily be monitored.

 
The fee including all communication & postage charges for the Quick Start Service is only £220 + £44 VAT (£264) for a single site or £500 + £100 VAT (£600) for up to a three-site Practice and on application for larger group Partnerships or organisations.
 
Please get in touch if you have a current Pack but ‘haven’t got around to it yet’ and would like to discuss whether this might just take a weight off your shoulders and your never ending to-do list….

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COMPLIANCE AUDIT

Establish where your surgery is now……
Action Plan what needs to be done
Ensure your H&S is tickety boo!

Who will this service benefit?

• A surgery that is pretty much sorted but just needs – possibly for CQC – to prove it!
• Partners that have a horrible feeling that although they have lots of ‘documentation’, it is disorganised and not easily available to pass onto staff or Inspectors
• Someone who has taken over the responsibility of H&S and urgently needs to establish a baseline of what has been done, if any of it is still current and find out if/where the ‘holes’ are to get everything necessary in place asap

 
The Audit Service was developed for Practices to 'prove' to CQC inspectors their compliance with Health & Safety legislation, Case Law and Best Practice.  Available from January 2020, it is in three formats to take into account the needs and resources of both Managers and Practices. It can also be used to establish a baseline for each surgery at the start of a contract with a new Partnership or formal/informal formation of Group Practices.   
 
OPTION 1 is the REMOTE SERVICE with an hour-long telephone conversation to gauge the level of compliance. This is followed by verification – as necessary – of emailed H&S documentation to ensure it is fit for purpose. This leads to a comprehensive, confidential report with action planning to move the Practice forward including suggestions for any additional resources or support that may be required or found useful.  The fee for a single-site surgery is £240 + £48 VAT or for a multi-site surgery £480 + £96 VAT.
 
OPTION 2 is the FACE-TO-FACE SERVICE which starts with a half-day’s fact finding at a surgery followed by further checking to answer any remaining queries which then results in a report being compiled as above. The fee for a single-site surgery is £495 + mileage fee of 48.5p per mile + VAT with additional costs agreed if extra time is spent carrying out Risk Assessments and advising on specific Health & Safety issues of the premises and/or their usage by staff and patients.  Prices for multi-site Practices are available on application.
 
OPTION 3 is delivered for a number of delegates and starts as an initial day’s WORKSHOP for up to four surgeries incorporating as much or as little training input as required.  With the information gained for each individual surgery from the joint session, we would then carry on with the fit-for- purpose verification to produce a confidential report for each surgery as above.  As there will be so many variables (e.g. number of participating surgeries/delegates, the training input required and location) the fee and split will be calculated on an individual basis each time.
 
Please don’t hesitate to contact Linden and her team if this you think this is a service that you, your Partners or your colleagues would find useful.

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RETAINER SCHEME

The GP Retainer Scheme is available to those with a current Pack who want to ensure that they always stay completely up-to-date and 'in-the-know'.  For an annual fee of £200 + £40 VAT (£240) membership includes:-

• A membership card and designated person to contact
• Full access to the email/telephone Help Line to talk over any issues, incidents or situations that have arisen and get help in deciding on a practical way forward. Advice can also be sought on writing and checking of Risk Assessments with no blame or shame
• Hard and electronic copies of the latest GP Pack when it is released with all the new legal (and CQC) requirements plus Best Practice solutions we have come across  
• A clear summary of updates and the reason for them (e.g. pages of the Questionnaire with new tasks to be carried out, Sections in the Supplemental with extra underpinning knowledge and any new or amended template Appendices)
• Myth Buster and Information Guides explaining clearly and without jargon the detail behind subjects (e.g. PAT, Lifts and Legionella Testing), Generic Risk Assessments and example forms that need to be completed (e.g. First Aid Needs Assessments)
• Email alerts on issues of concern or controversy that occur from time to time in GP Land’s Health & Safety

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“ The Partners and I find the Retainer Scheme to be invaluable and actually enables us to be pro-active in managing our Health & Safety.  The email alerts with new Best Practice are enormously reassuring especially those about extra info that the CQC are wanting to see or are wrong in demanding.  The helpline not only supplies common sense and expert advice but also support as we can discuss what has worked for other Practices before settling on solutions that will work for us.”