First impressions really do count – especially it seems when it comes to CQC inspections. Many successful practices say that their opening 30-minute presentation to inspectors really paved the way for success, providing a great opportunity to set the scene and highlight the strengths of the practice.

After an introductory session, the CQC will invite a practice to present their own view of their performance, particularly in relation to the five key questions and six population groups, and to include any examples of outstanding care and practice. The five key questions are:

• Are they safe?
• Are they effective?
• Are they caring?
• Are they responsive to people’s needs?
• Are they well-led?

There is no specified format or media for the 30-minute presentation; you can choose whichever format suits the practice and you may wish to include a patient view. This should take no longer than 30 minutes and practices may choose to involve patients and staff in order to help provide evidence of the good work being put in place.

Open and honest

During the presentation practices are encouraged to be open and share their views with the inspectors who want to get to the HEART of people’s experience of care, so the focus of their inspections is on the quality and safety of services, based on the things that matter to people. CQC Inspectors will use professional judgement, supported by objective measures and evidence, to assess services against their inspection criteria.

CQC Inspectors corroborate evidence during the inspection, so the presentation is one of the best opportunities to set the scene and tell the story of the practice and to evidence quality services and safe care against the five key questions and the six population groups. It is vital to ‘sell’ and ‘market’ the care and services provided and try and demonstrate ‘outstanding’ examples, as well as what the practice is doing to improve in those areas you know are not so strong. The patient view is a very powerful medium to include in the presentation.

Views from the front line

Commenting on the Somerset LMC website, a member of staff at the St James Medical Centre in Taunton provided the following feedback: “For our presentation we chose not to use PowerPoint and instead provided a fairly informal chat covering the history and development of the practice, outlining the main current issues for us as we saw them. To inform this we had prepared a SWOT analysis which we shared. We also shared our business plan and a folder containing various supporting documents.”

Wigton Group Medical Practice in Cumbria was the first GP practice to be rated outstanding in the new style inspections. Practice Manager Lin Baillie told GP Online: “The practice put together a presentation, led by two of the GPs, to start the inspection. This presentation is optional, but it set the tone of the day, so I felt it was useful. We included patient feedback and invited a patient to attend. Myself and a member of the admin team also attended.

“We talked about patient stories, highlighted why we offered a good service and showed them audit results demonstrating the effects of improvements we had made. Being able to show that we don’t just audit for its own sake was crucial.”

What should be covered?

It’s clear therefore that the presentation can be an extremely useful tool. ‘But what should we talk about?’ we hear you cry.

The honest answer is that it varies from practice to practice. The secret is to talk about how you excel in the five key areas listed above. The BMA has helpfully provided a list of areas that could be covered – click here and look for Appendix B (found within ‘Download guidance and appendices’) – which include:

• Highlight how the practice operates to include the partnership, workforce (recruitment and retention), list size, Patient Participation Group (PPG), population groups and demographics, working alongside attached health, social care and voluntary professionals to include out-of-hours services, working within a GP provider organisation and any specialist interests.
• Identify clearly how the practice is well‐led, for example training (use a staff role training matrix to demonstrate compliance) and supervision, staff meetings, whistleblowing policy, how you improve quality, deliver safe care and services, listening and responding to patients views and complaints, how risks are identified, mitigated and managed, and mention any challenges or threats with examples of how these are overcome
• Talk about access to all of the appointments and services including triage and telephone, urgent, advanced, female and male clinicians (where possible).
• Talk about care plans and named GPs and how the practice works with other professionals and organisations.
• Identify specific patient cases (current or past) that can be shared anonymously with the CQC Inspector to help the practice demonstrate compliance with consent to care and treatment; safeguarding for example.

Examples matter

Talking to practice managers that have survived an inspection, it’s clear that saying the right things only matters if they can be backed up by examples. So, ahead of your inspection, write up and print out tangible examples to give to the inspectors. As mentioned above, involving patients can also be beneficial.

More pointers

On the Practice Index Forum, a popular discussion has been taking place regarding CQC inspection presentations and a handy presentation template packed full of ideas is also available to download.

What advice and suggestions can you give when it comes to preparing a brilliant presentation? What didn’t work for you? Please head to the thread here on the forum where you can discuss your thoughts in confidence with other practice managers.