- GP practice
Abbey Medical Centre
Report from 28 May 2025 assessment
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of Assessment: 4 July to 10 July. Abbey Medical Centre is a GP practice and delivers service to approximately 2400 patients under a contract held with NHS England. (The National General Practice Profiles states that at the time of our assessment there were 61.6% were White, 21.2% Asian and 8.5 Black).Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the 5 decile (5 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.
The practice is located in Reading with a high number of ethnic minority groups and a high proportion of non-English speakers. It is part of the Reading Holybrook primary care network and benefits from support and resilience of its larger sister practices- Broad Street Health Centre and Milman and Kennet Surgery. The practice operates with a lean and proportionate staffing model supported by long term locum GPs and Practice Nurses.
This was a comprehensive assessment of Abbey Medical Centre to provide a rating for this location. This service had not been inspected previously. We assessed all quality statements across safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led key questions.
People's experience of this service
People were positive about the quality of their care and treatment. Recent survey results, including from the National GP Patient Survey and the NHS Friends and Family Test, showed people were satisfied with services. We saw that people’s satisfaction with contacting the practice on the phone was above the local and national averages. 85% of the patients who responded found it easy to get through to this GP practice by phone, compared to local average of 54% and national average of 53%.
The service had an active patient participation group (PPG) who represented the views of people using the service. Representatives from the PPG described the positive changes have been brought into the practice since the new management. There was now improved access and communication. The PPG meetings focused on any structural changes and any impacts it had on the practice population. The service actively sought feedback from service users to support continuous improvement. Complaints though very few had been received, were thoroughly investigated and used as learning opportunities to enhance service quality.