• Doctor
  • GP practice

Ascot Medical Centre

Brook House, Heatherwood Hospital, Brook Avenue, Ascot, SL5 7GB (01344) 874011

Provided and run by:
Ascot Medical Centre

Important: This service was previously registered at a different address - see old profile

Inspection summaries and ratings at previous address

On this page

Background to this inspection

Updated 2 July 2018

Radnor House Surgery and Ascot Medical Centre was established in April 2015 when two small Ascot practices merged. Since then, there have been a number of organisational changes and three different providers offering GP services to approximately 5,100 patients in Ascot and the surrounding areas. The current provider is a GP partnership between two GP partners which was registered with the Care Quality Commission in January 2017. Many of the staff working for the practice have been with the practice before and during the merger.

The practice is a member practice of East Berkshire Clinical Commissioning Group and part of the federation of Windsor, Ascot and Maidenhead (WAM) GP practices. The federation offers extended hours services to all the WAM GP practices. Out of Hours services can be accessed by contacting the NHS 111 telephone service.

Ascot is an area of low deprivation and high employment. The locality is predominantly white British with approximately 10% of the population from black and other minority ethnic groups.

There are two GP partners (both male) who predominantly offer administration and organisational support to the practice. One GP partner is not currently undertaking any clinical sessions but is supporting the practice by providing home visits and some telephone consultations. The other partner undertakes 2 clinical sessions per week and four sessions of administration duties. They also offer and respond to the e-Consult requests. There are five salaried GPs (one male, four female) who provide 27 sessions per week (a whole time equivalent (WTE) of 2.4 full time GPs) and a long-term locum who offers an additional two sessions per week. There are currently two GPs on maternity leave and these sessions are being covered by one of the GP partners and the long-term locum GP. The nursing team consists of two practice nurses (WTE 1.34) and an HCA (WTE 0.75).

Organisational management and day-to-day operations are overseen by a practice manager, a reception team leader, a senior administrator and 10 reception and administration staff.

The practice provides all clinical services and regulated activity from:

Forest Lodge

Gate 3 Heatherwood Hospital

Kings Ride

Ascot

SL5 8AA

There is also an administration hub approximately 1 mile from the practice, which is situated on the old site of Radnor House Surgery.

Patients can access information, healthcare advice and a variety of online services through the practice website: www.rhsamc.co.uk

This was the first inspection of Radnor House Surgery and Ascot Medical Practice under the current provider. The merged practices had been inspected previously whilst under the old provider which can be found by searching the archived files on .

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 2 July 2018

This practice is rated as Good overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? - Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Radnor House Surgery and Ascot Medical Centre on 2 May 2018. This inspection was carried out as part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

  • The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.
  • The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
  • Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
  • Patients found the appointment system easy to use and most patients reported that they were able to access care when they needed it.
  • Complaints were investigated and dealt with appropriately although not all complaints we reviewed had an acknowledgement and the practice needed to review how they offered details of the health service ombudsman to patients in complaints responses.
  • There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

  • Review the processes for responding to and acknowledging complaints to bring in line with practice policy and to include details of the health ombudsman.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice