Birchwood 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. This is the first inspection under our new methodology for this service. This key question has been rated as good.

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. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect. Arrangements were in place to promote patients’ privacy. The 2024 National GP Patient Survey data reflected people felt listened to and were treated with kindness and the practice's performance was in line with local and national averages. Staff we spoke with understood Gillick competency (Those aged 16 or over are entitled to consent to their own treatment) and there was a process to ensure young adults had control over their own privacy and the amount of parental involvement in managing their care and support. Processes for oversight of practice improvement were in place with evidence of documented actions taken to respond to patient feedback. This included hold times on the telephone lines.

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. 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.

The service promoted people’s independence, and people knew their rights and did have choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing. Although staff helped patients and their carers to access advocacy and community-based services, we found that 13 out of 34 staff had not completed privacy and dignity training.

The service listened 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. However, we found that 15 out of 54 staff had not completed or had out of date health navigation training. There was a system for appointment triage 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. Patient survey data was audited clearly to document what changes had been made as a result of patient feedback.

The service cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care. Staff told us they felt valued by leaders. Leaders had taken steps to recognise and meet the wellbeing needs of staff, which included the necessary resources and facilities for safe working, such as regular breaks and rest areas. Staff reported being supported if they were struggling at work. Staff had access to an occupational health service. We observed that most staff had completed equality and diversity training. The last staff survey had been completed in 2024 and staff were happy and felt supported in their roles.