Lupset Health Centre

Updated 5 April 2024

Lupset Health Centre is an NHS GP practice which provides primary medical care services to patients living in and around Wakefield, West Yorkshire. We carried out an announced assessment of one quality statement, equity of access, under the key question Responsive at the practice on the 26 March 2024. The assessment was undertaken 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, 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, in 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. The assessment of the quality statement equity of access includes looking at what practices are doing innovatively to improve patient access to primary care, and sharing this information to drive improvement. We found that the practice had organised services to meet patients’ needs, and that these services were accessible to them. We saw that the practice had put in place measures to improve patient communication routes and overall accessibility. In addition, we saw that the provider worked closely with their Primary Care Network, and their local extended hours provider to increase the range of services on offer, and expand hours of operation when patients could be seen. The practice sought out and used feedback and other data and information to monitor and improve access to their patients.

Updated 5 April 2024

Data from the 2023 National GP Patient Survey showed that patient satisfaction with GP practice access was below national and local averages. For example, only 21% of respondents reported that it was easy to get through to someone at the GP practice on the telephone. This was below the national average of 49.6%. The practice had since 2019 consistently performed below national averages for this measure. In addition, only 30.3% of respondents were either very happy or fairly happy with their GP appointment times at the practice compared to 55.3% for other local practices and 52.8% nationally. The practice had shown a sharp decline for this figure from 2022 to 2023 as satisfaction had fallen from a previous 50% to 30.3%. The overall positive experience of making an appointment at 32.4% was also below the local average of 57.3% and the national average of 54.4%. Results from the NHS Friends and Family Test (FFT) were reviewed, and we found them to be generally positive. From September 2023 to February 2024 the practice had received 1,670 responses. Of these 1,520 rated the practice as either very good or good, and only 71 rated the practice as either very poor or poor. We saw that the practice actively analysed survey results and patient feedback. The practice had developed an action plan which sought to continue to improve patient satisfaction, and had implemented actions from this plan. Actions included the installation of a new telephony system which offered patient call back, increased staffing at peak times to answer telephone calls, and promotion of online access. We heard that issues related to access had been discussed with members of the Patient Participation Group (PPG), and that the PPG had conducted a recent survey of patients regarding appointments and access. The results of which showed that from 93 responses 71% of patients attended an appointment within 3 days of booking (other patients had made pre-bookable appointments for a future date).