Wetherby Health Centre

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• 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 for this service since its registration with CQC. 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 patients with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. The provider recognised the importance of confidentiality and realised patients may feel uncomfortable discussing their issues at the practice reception desk. In response to this a private room could be made available where patients could discuss issues with reception staff. The reception desk at the practice had a drop-section, and so was appropriate for wheelchair users.

During our onsite visit we noted that it was possible to overhear conversations at the reception desk. However, the provider used the radio to mask these conversations as much as possible. Within the building we found that conversations from within consultation rooms could not be overheard in corridors.

Clinical staff we spoke with fully understood Gillick competency, and there were processes to ensure young adults had control over their own privacy and the amount of parental involvement in managing their care and support.

As part of our assessment, we reviewed the National GP Patient Survey data for 2025. Measures related to caring showed that patients felt listened to and were treated with kindness and results were either slightly above or were broadly in line with local and national averages. For example, 89% of respondents said that the healthcare professional they saw or spoke with was good at listening to them during their last appointment. This compared to local and national averages of 87%. In addition, 90% of respondents said the healthcare professional they saw or spoke with was good at treating them with care and concern during their last appointment, compared to the local and national average figures of 86%.

The service treated people as individuals, and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met their needs and preferences. Patients’ personal, cultural, social, religious and equality characteristics needs were understood and met.

The provider made reasonable adjustments both for patients and staff. The practice had access to an interpretation and translation service, and a hearing loop was available to support those with a hearing impairment. The practice noted the specific communication and personal needs of patients on their records, and used this information to support their ongoing care needs. Those with additional needs were offered appointments longer than the standard 15 minutes, and appointments could be booked at quieter, less busy times. Support was in place for transgender patients to meet their health needs, such as ensuring continued participation in national screening programmes.

The provider also recognised the specific needs of parts of their patient population and sought to gain a better understanding of these needs, and through this provide better care. For example, the provider had been accredited for the provision of services to service veterans and their families, and as being dementia friendly.

The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

We reviewed the 2025 National GP Patient Survey and saw 92% of respondents said they were involved as much as they wanted to be in decisions about their care and treatment during their last general practice appointment. This was above the local and national averages of 91%. In addition, 24%were offered a choice of location when they last tried to make a general practice appointment compared to a local average of 16% and a national average of 14%.

When booking an appointment patients were also able to indicate if they preferred a face to face or telephone consultation, and had good continuity of care (although access to a preferred clinician was dependent on their availability). Patients were also able to choose whether to attend the Bramham Medical Centre or Wetherby Health Centre sites.

The practice listened to and understood patient’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to patient’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

Staff we spoke to knew how to respond when a patient needed immediate or urgent attention. There were systems in place to support this, including a toolkit to support telephone triage, and procedures to identify serious concerns in presenting patients. Staff were able to use panic alarms to call for assistance, and emergency equipment and medicines were available. For immediate assessment and support, staff could contact the shift leader/duty doctor. We saw in personnel records that staff had received training in basic life support and sepsis awareness. When we spoke with staff, both clinical and non-clinical, they were aware of processes for referral to immediate emergency support.

Staff from the practice and their primary care network directly supported patients in a local residential care home. This included weekly planned care visits and acute visits. We spoke with a manager from the care home who told us that the practice gave good support to their residents and was responsive to calls for visits.

Palliative care patients were supported, and we saw evidence of close partnership working with other stakeholders to ensure their ongoing needs were being met. This included holding regular meetings and undertaking joint care planning.

The service cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care. The provider told us that over the past 2 years since forming the service at Wetherby they had worked hard to recruit and form a cohesive workforce, and recognised the importance of supporting and developing staff.

To help support staff wellbeing the provider had developed and adopted a staff wellbeing policy, a stress at work policy and had undertaken staff stress risk assessments. The provider had also established other mechanisms to enhance staff wellbeing. This has included flexible working arrangements, and making workplace adjustments to help staff such as the use of rising desks.

Induction processes were in place to assist new staff, and the practice held regular staff appraisals where staff could raise work issues, including those linked to wellbeing. Staff were also able to raise wellbeing concerns directly or give feedback during meetings or via a staff survey. Results from the survey undertaken in 2024 showed that overall staff were generally positive about working at the practice with teamwork, the commitment to patient care and supportive culture being recognised as strengths. We saw that 76% of staff reported that they were satisfied in their role, and 21% were neutral. Staff though had also raised issues which they felt could be improved upon such as communication, flexible working processes, and workload. We saw that the provider had taken these on board and put in measures to improve. These included developing a homeworking policy to aid fair and consistent decision-making, introducing health and safety briefings to improve communication of this topic, and discussing work pressures at monthly management meetings.

Staff told us they felt valued by leaders and line managers, and said they experienced positive relationships with their managers. In turn, leaders and managers told us that they were committed to staff wellbeing and development. They valued the input of staff, and as a result at the time of our assessment were forming a staff participation group which would be used to discuss emerging issues, and to co-design solutions and improvements with the input from a range of staff. The first meeting was planned for January 2026.

Staff development and training was core to the culture of staff wellbeing and enablement, and we saw that staff had been given opportunities to gain additional training and experience to support their future career within the practice.

Staff and managers also pointed out the importance of meeting with other staff members socially and gave examples of social events that had been organised for staff.