The Simpson Centre

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

We looked for evidence that staff involved people in decisions about their care and treatment and provided them advice and support. Staff regularly reviewed people’s care and worked with other services to achieve this.

This is the first inspection for this service since its registration with CQC. This key question has been rated as Outstanding.

This service scored 88 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The practice made sure patients care and treatment was effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care, well-being and communication needs with them.

Reception staff were aware of the needs of the local community. Reception staff used digital flags within the care records system to highlight any specific individual needs, such as the requirement for longer appointments or tailored adjustments. Staff checked people’s health, care, and well-being needs during health reviews. Clinical staff used templates when conducting care reviews to support the review of people’s wider health and well-being.

The needs of carers of people using services were also assessed and met. This supported their health and well-being in their carer roles and helped them to provide safe and effective care to the people they support.

To ensure patients had their needs assessed and had effective and optimised health outcomes, the practice was working to change the long-term condition recall system. The new recall system had evolved from a birth month-based system to a system based on population segmentation data, to assess needs and prioritise those at greatest risk of deterioration prior to winter.

The practice proactively used population health management tools to improve treatment for those patients whose health needs had changed, and their care needs evolved. Specifically, the practice had highlighted a growing cohort of patients who had become moderately frail. In response, the practice had commenced a multidisciplinary frailty service to try and improve the provision of care and support to this cohort of patients before they reach crisis point and needing reactive emergency care.

Our review of the clinical record system indicated that patients received care, treatment and support that was evidence-based and in line with good practice standards. The management of patients living with long term conditions was good and our searches did not identify any significant gaps in the monitoring of patients.

Systems were in place to ensure staff were up to date with evidence-based guidance and legislation. For example, daily clinical discussions as part of clinical huddles, clinical coffee breaks and fortnightly clinical meetings which included updates where there have been changes of guidance or recent clinical queries. Clinical staff provided examples, when new national asthma guidelines and management of liver disease, was discussed to ensure practice staff were updated and delivered evidence-based care.

The practice worked well across both sites, different teams and other health services to support patients, their families including carers. They shared thorough assessments of patients’ needs when they moved between different services, so patients only needed to tell provide information once. This aligned to a practice value which was ‘collaboration’ and focused on practice staff working closely with other services to provide high-quality joined up care.

Staff had access to the information they needed to appropriately assess, plan, and deliver people’s care, treatment, and support. The practice worked with other services to ensure continuity of care, including where clinical tasks were delegated to other services.

The practice supported patients to live healthier lives and where possible, reduce their future needs for care and support. Staff told us they used every contact with patients to improve the health of the patient population.

Staff proactively focused on identifying risks to patients’ health, including those receiving palliative care, patients at risk of developing a long-term condition and those with caring responsibilities. Staff supported national priorities and initiatives to improve population health.

We saw there was strengthened oversight of urgent referrals, with effective systems in place to ensure patients attended their 2-week wait appointments. Individuals living with long-term conditions were regularly monitored and, where appropriate, referred or signposted to local services offering information, education, and tailored support.

There was a system that ensured all the patients with a learning disability were offered an annual health check including appointments with a variety of reasonable adjustments available, for example, at different locations, different times of the day and in rooms with low lighting. In the first 4 months (April 2025 – March 2026) 24 patients in this group of 43 (56%), had received an annual health check with the other patients either booked or further attempts to schedule.

In the last 12 months the practice had arranged a programme of awareness events, open forums and themed educational sessions to raise awareness of health conditions and promote good health in practice patients and the wider communities. For example, in March 2025 a GP led discussion on the menopause, perimenopause and general female health. Clinical staff told us that since the event, patients who had attended had become more open to discuss the subject and other associated symptoms. The success of the event led to the next event in September 2025 which focuses on men’s health and prostate cancer.

With oversight from the practice, we saw the patient participation group (PPG) published regular newsletters which included health promotion and seasonal health advice, for example the Summer 2025 newsletter included seasonal topics such as sun protection and examples of the main types of skin cancer.

The practice monitored care and treatment to continuously improve it. They ensured that outcomes were positive and consistent, and that they fully met both clinical expectations and the expectations of people themselves.

The practice exceeded the World Health Organisation (WHO) national target of 95% (the recommended standard for achieving herd immunity)for childhood immunisations with all over the 95%.

From the clinical notes we reviewed, we found that people who used the service experienced positive outcomes as set out in legislation, standards, and evidence-based clinical guidance.

The practice had an 83% cervical cancer screening uptake rate, which was above the expected 80% target. Staff told us they continued to review uptake and reduce the barriers to uptake. The practice offered longer appointments for patients who had questions or concerns about cervical screening due to religious and cultural reasons. There was a system for checking of results, chasing results not received to ensure a failsafe process.

As a training practice we saw evidence of an established culture of audit activity to monitor the quality of care offered to patients. There had been a wide range of clinical audits undertaken in the last year, for example, a 2-cycle antibiotic prescribing audit from July 2025 and a 2-cycle proton pump inhibitor audit from June 2025 – both of which demonstrated improvements.

We saw and staff told us the audits were discussed at the practice team meetings, reflected upon, learning shared with the full practice team and fed into the wider quality improvement programme.

The practice told patients and where appropriate carers and their families about their rights around consent and respected these when delivering person-centred care and treatment.

Staff we spoke with demonstrated the importance of ensuring that people understood the care and treatment offered before obtaining consent. Clinical and non-clinical staff had undergone training in the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and clinical staff understood the requirements of legislation and guidance when considering consent and decision making.

We looked at a sample of ‘Do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation’ (DNACPR) decisions in patient records. Appropriately completed documents were available and had been shared with other relevant services and alerts had been added to the patient record system. Relevant documentation demonstrated in the care records of patients assessed as not having capacity to make certain decisions.

The practice used ReSPECT (recommended summary plan for emergency care and treatment) plans, to record agreed recommendations for a person’s clinical care in future emergencies if they were not able to make the decision, this included do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (DNACPR) decisions where appropriate. We observed clinical flags were on patients’ records when they had a completed ReSPECT form and plans had been made in line with relevant legislation.