Lanchester Medical Centre

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.

At our last assessment, we rated this key question as requires improvement. At this assessment, the rating remains the same.

This service scored 60 (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 mostly treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. However, the practice’s approach to complaint handling did not demonstrate this was done with kindness, compassion and dignity. Patient who made complaints reported their complaints were not handled satisfactorily, did not demonstrate empathy and with severe delays in some cases.

Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

At our last inspection in July 2025, we received mixed feedback from people who used the service and their representatives. We found similar mixed feedback at our April 2026 inspection. Results from the National GP Patient Survey data reflected people felt listened to and were treated with kindness. However, the patient participation group fed back high levels of patient dissatisfaction, and we had many patients contact us through our give feedback on care webform as well as directly with concerns about the service from the practice.

Arrangements were in place to promote patients’ privacy. Staff we spoke with understood Gillick competency 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.

There had been improvements to the way the service treated people. The service now treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. The service took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

At our last inspection, our clinical searches demonstrated the service did not always treat people as individuals or make sure people’s care, support and treatment met their needs and preferences. At this inspection, the clinical searches demonstrated that care and treatment now took account of patients’ individual needs and was in line with best practice.

The practice had carers identified via their register. Information was displayed in the waiting area giving carers help and advice. The PPG held a carers coffee morning at the practice in conjunction with carers week and the local carers association who provided advice for carers.

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 had improved the standard of care and oversight of long-term conditions. The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

In 2025, we found a poor standard of care and oversight of long-term conditions. We could not establish if patients knew their rights and had choice and control over their care. At this inspection, we found improvements had been made. There was evidence the service had improved the standard of care and oversight of long-term conditions. The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

Staff helped patients and their carers to access advocacy and community-based services.

The service listened to 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. 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.

The patient participation group reported continuing patient frustration with the 8am rush for appointments and lack of continuity of care.

The provider did not care about and promote the wellbeing of their staff. They did not always support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care.

At our July 2025 inspection, we found the provider did not care about or promote the well-being of their staff. At this inspection we found similar concerns. We sent out questionnaires to staff and spoke with staff on site and remotely.

We found there remained a clear divide between staff who supported the provider and those who did not. Staff continued to report the situation in the practice as a turbulent and unstable time for them. They spoke of constant change, poor communication and uncertainty on current policies and procedures. The culture in their workplace remained stressful and staff morale was low. Some staff described the atmosphere as ‘toxic’, with concerns about psychological safety.

There were gaps in communication channels, particularly for non-clinical staff and the pharmacy team. This was hampering productive working relationships.

A new suite of personnel policies had been developed and introduced to support a better working environment. However, these had not had a significant impact on the working environment.