- GP practice
Great Barr Medical Centre
Report from 23 April 2025 assessment
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of Assessment: 2 June 2025 to 3 June 2025. Great Barr Medical Centre is a GP practice and delivers service to 10640 patients under a contract held with NHS England. The National General Practice Profiles states that 59.41% of patients are White, 24.15% Asian, 9.12% Black, 4.09% Mixed and 3.24% Other. Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the sixth decile (6 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others. This assessment considered the demographics of the people using the service, the context the service was working within and how this impacted service delivery. Where relevant, further commentary is provided in the quality statements section of this report.
SAFE: The service had significantly improved; however, we found some areas required further strengthening to ensure risks were mitigated. Staff managed the majority of medicines well; but further improvements were needed in the management of long term conditions and medicines that required regular monitoring or review. We also found safeguarding registers required a review to ensure they were up to date and contained all the relevant information. The practice had improved their systems to share learning to ensure incidents were thoroughly investigated. Staff understood and managed risks. The facilities and equipment met the needs of people, were clean and well-maintained. A review of staff competencies had been completed to ensure there were enough staff with the right skills, qualifications and experience to carry out their roles effectively, but as identified at the previous assessment in November 2024, some staff continued to undertake clinical assessments without the appropriate qualifications or clinical supervision. Managers made sure staff received training and regular appraisals.
EFFECTIVE: We found the care and treatment of patients had improved, however systems needed to be strengthened to ensure all risks were mitigated. The provider had increased the clinical team to provide an effective service for patients and to ensure patients were assessed and provided with appropriate care and treatment, however we continued to find concerns with long term condition management.
Staff worked with all agencies involved in people’s care for the best outcomes and smooth transitions when moving services. We were unable to gain assurances that staff made sure people understood their care and treatment to enable them to give informed consent. Staff involved those important to people, took decisions in people’s best interests where they did not have capacity.
CARING: The practice had completed an inhouse survey to gather patient feedback in March 2025, which showed some improvements in people’s satisfaction with the service. We observed people being treated with kindness and compassion. Staff protected their privacy and dignity. They treated them as individuals and supported their preferences. People had choice in their care and treatment. The service supported staff wellbeing.
RESPONSIVE: We found improvements in the management of complaints and saw evidence to demonstrate that learning from complaints was shared with the practice team to drive improvements. At the last assessment we found that the practice did not always organise and deliver services to meet people’s needs and patients could not always access appointments in a timely way. The provider had increased the clinical team to improve the services for patients. People we spoke with on the day of the assessment told us they had seen improvements, and this was also reflected in the comments we received from staff. The practice had a duty doctor available to provide advice and to deal with urgent requests.
People were involved in decisions about their care. The service provided information people could understand. The service worked to reduce health and care inequalities through training and feedback. People were involved in planning their care and understood options around choosing to withdraw or not receive care.
WELL-LED: Significant improvements were seen in how the practice was being managed and how leaders and staff had a shared vision and culture based on listening, learning and trust. Since the last assessment, the provider had formed a new partnership with 1 other GP and 2 non-clinical partners to further develop the practice and implement plans to improve the overall quality of the services provided. Governance arrangements had been strengthened to mitigate risks; however further improvements were needed to ensure all risks were mitigated. We continue to identify concerns regarding the management of staff in clinical roles, particularly in relation to the lack of clinical oversight as well as gaps in staff competencies and knowledge. Staff understood their roles and responsibilities. Staff told us leaders were visible and they felt supported to give feedback and were treated equally, free from bullying or harassment.
Since the last assessment, the practice had made improvements, however we found continued breaches of regulation in relation to:
Regulation 12 Safe Care and Treatment and Regulation 17 Good Governance.We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.
This service was placed in Special Measures on 7 May 2024. The provider demonstrated improvements that have been made. The service is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. Therefore, this service is no longer in Special Measures.
People's experience of this service
People we spoke with expressed positive views about the quality of their care and treatment.
The provider actively sought feedback from service users to support continuous improvement. An inhouse survey had been carried out during March 2025 that showed improvements in a range of quality indicators and patient experience in comparison to the National Patient GP Survey that was completed in 2024. The process for acting on complaints had been improved and complaints were now used as learning opportunities to enhance service quality.
There was an active Patient Participation Group (PPG) who represented the views of people using the service. Representatives from the PPG described how improvements had been seen, information was shared to gather feedback from the PPG on improvements.