THE out-of-hours GP service has been held up as a shining example of safe care by a national health watchdog.

East Lancashire Medical Services (ELMS) was chosen as a case study in the Care Quality Commission's new report, 'Celebrating good care, Championing outstanding care'.

The regulator was impressed by the robust systems in place to monitor patient safety, and the organisation's willingness to listen to criticism, and learn from it.

ELMS, a social enterprise formed by GPs, achieved five ‘good’ ratings from the CQC in January, after its first visit under the beefed-up inspection regime.

The use of an electronic system to allow GPs to access to the front page of patients’ records, so long as they had consented, was also described as ‘outstanding’.

A delighted Diane Ridgway, the organisation's chief executive, said one of the keys to success has been the 'very flat management structure', in which her role 'isn't too removed from the front line and the patients'.

She admitted 'it isn't easy' to listen to criticism of the service, but added: “I take it very seriously (and) monitoring of complaints runs right through the organisation.

"It makes us very conscious of how we are performing – we have a patients’ voice representative in each of the localities we cover and that is at least 16 people in a group who hold us to account.”

The report said GPs and nurses also had monthly reviews of their records through a system called Clinical Guardian to ensure treatment and management of patients was in line with best practice, while managers had a variety of performance check mechanisms.

Mrs Ridgway, who has been in her role for seven years, added: “I was a nurse and I understand it’s important to put the patient first. I moved into clinical audit and governance, so professionally I’ve grown up with inspections. We have leadership stability, and standards are very important, but much of this is common sense too."

Russ McLean, the official patient representative, said the praise had come as a result of the organisation being 'truly patient-focused and listening to patients'.