Werrington Village Surgery

On this page

• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

We looked for evidence that the service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect. At our last assessment, we rated this key question as Good. At this assessment, the rating remains the same.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The service treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. National GP Patient Survey data reflected 72 % of people felt listened to and were treated with kindness.

Staff understood the needs of the patient population and were able to provide care and treatment that met people’s needs. Staff understood and respected the personal, cultural, social, and religious needs of people. All staff had completed appropriate mandatory training ensuring that individual needs were understood and met.

Whilst conducting our onsite inspection we witnessed the staff treating patients over the phone and face to face with dignity and respect. There was appropriate space if patients had something confidential or for sensitive issues they wanted to discuss with a member of staff. Patients were treated with compassion, understanding and kindness. The staff showed empathy where needed we observed people’s privacy and dignity being respected and upheld.

People we spoke to told us they were happy with the surgery and noted an improvement getting an appointment since total triage was introduced, they had no concerns around clinical care. People when asked what could be improved made suggestions such as radio in reception due to it being a quiet area. The surgery had a hearing loop and access to interpreters. The surgery was entirely on the ground floor and had good disabled accessibility.

The service treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics. The surgery brought in a dementia expert to support in the set up within the surgery and implemented their suggestions. Two members of surgery staff were completing their Oliver McGowen train the trainer training so all staff can do face to face training around patients with learning disabilities. Care coordinators worked with patients completing holistic reviews for patients with memory problems.

Patients’ personal, cultural, social, religious and equality characteristics needs were understood and met. Patient communication needs were met to enable them to be fully involved in their care. People’s medical records were personalised, and care and treatment were person-centred. People’s wishes were recorded on their care record. There was a process in place to share these records with other local healthcare professionals.

The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

Staff helped patients and their carers to access advocacy and community-based services. Staff gave a positive and successful example of how they encouraged a patient with learning disabilities to come in for their annual review, when they were reluctant.

At the time of the assessment the practice had good processes in place to promote patients’ independence and support them to make informed decisions about their care, treatment and wellbeing. They gave patients information and guidance to enable them to make informed decisions about their care.

The service listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

The surgery had recently implemented a new system of total triage, which allowed all patients to either request an appointment electronically or by phone, all calls were triaged by the duty GP the same day, and calls were prioritised according to patient needs that ensured people with immediate needs had access to services. Staff we spoke with knew the process for referral to emergency support, including mental health crisis teams.

Staff told us over the year prior to the inspection a combination of unforeseeable circumstances had left them short staffed, they shared that management had supported them. Leaders shared where they could foresee shortfalls in staff, they had proactively brought in additional team members to train prior to loss of others. The management had a strategy to improve resilience moving forward. However, this had not always been communicated well with staff and staff told us they did feel under pressure. Staff told us if they required additional training this was normally agreed.

The service cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care. Staff had regular appraisals and managers had an open-door policy. Leaders had taken steps to recognise and meet the wellbeing needs of staff, which included trying to ensure the necessary resources and facilities for safe working, such as taking regular breaks and ensuring availability of rest areas.