The Baldock Surgery Also known as Dr MM Thomas and Partners

Updated 16 January 2024

The Baldock Surgery is located at

Astonia House,

High Street,

Baldock

Hertfordshire

SG7 6BP

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning, surgical procedures, maternity and midwifery services and treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures.

The practice is situated within the Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of approximately 12900. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices called Icknield Primary Care Network.

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is rated 9, on a scale of one to 10. The lower the rating the more deprived the practice population is relative to others.

According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 93.7% White, 3.2% Asian, 2% Mixed, 0.8% Black and 0.3% Other.

The practices clinical team consists of 6 GP Partners, 5 salaried GPs, 4 nurses, 2 healthcare assistants, paramedics and trainees. They are supported by a team of reception, administrative staff including a practice manager and finance assistant.

The practice is open between 8am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday. The practice offers a range of appointment types including on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments.

Extended access is provided locally by Icknield Primary Care Network, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Out of hours services are provided by Herts Urgent Care and can be accessed via the NHS 111 service.

Updated 16 January 2024

We carried out an announced focused inspection at The Baldock Surgery on 12 December 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring – Good

Responsive – Requires Improvement

Well-led - Good

Following our previous comprehensive inspection on 27 February 2019 the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions.

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Baldock Surgery on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are working to try to meet peoples demands for access and to better understand the experiences of people who use services and providers.

We recognise the work that GP practices have been engaged in to continue to provide safe, high-quality care to the people they serve. We know staff are carrying this out whilst the demand for general practice remains exceptionally high, with more appointments being provided than ever. However, this challenging context, access to general practice remains a concern for people.

Our strategy makes a commitment to deliver regulation driven by people’s needs and experiences of care. These assessments of the responsive key question include looking at what practices are doing innovatively to improve patient access to primary care and sharing this information to drive improvement.

How we carried out the inspection

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This assessment was carried out remotely. It did not include a site visit.

The process included:

• Conducting an interview with the provider and members of staff using video conferencing.
• Reviewing patient feedback from a range of sources
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• Reviewing data we hold about the provider.
• Seeking information/feedback from relevant stakeholders

Our findings

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

• what we found when we inspected
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We found that:

• During the assessment process, the provider highlighted the actions they have taken to make improvements to the responsiveness of the service for their patient population.
• The GP survey patient over the last two years had mostly remained below the national average.
• The percentage of respondents to the GP patient survey who responded positively to how easy it was to get through to someone at their GP practice on the phone had remained below the national average in the last 2 years.
• The percentage of respondents to the GP patient survey who responded positively to the overall experience of making an appointment remained below the national average in the last 2 years.
• The percentage of respondents to the GP patient survey who were very satisfied or fairly satisfied with their GP practice appointment times remained below the national average in the last 2 years.
• On the other hand, we also found that the percentage of respondents to the GP patient survey who were satisfied with the appointment (or appointments) they were offered was above the national average. The practice mostly attributed this to their triage system.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Continue to improve patient access.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Health Care