Primary Care Sheffield

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

The service had a very clear shared vision, strategy and culture and an exceptional understanding of the challenges and the needs of people across the city. Strategies and plans were fully aligned with plans in the wider health economy. There was a demonstrated commitment to system-wide collaboration and leadership. Leaders at all levels were inclusive and understood the context in which they delivered care, treatment and support and embodied the culture and values of their workforce and organisation. Leaders were visible, knowledgeable and supportive, helping staff develop in their roles. Staff felt supported to give feedback and were treated equally, free from bullying or harassment. Staff understood their roles and responsibilities.

There was a culture of continuous improvement with staff given time and resources to try new ideas. The service had a strong focus on continuous learning, innovation and improvement across the organisation. They encouraged creative ways of delivering equality of experience, outcome and quality of life for people. They actively contributed to safe, effective practice and research.

This service scored 96 (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 had a very clear shared vision, strategy and culture. This was based on transparency, equity, equality and human rights, diversity and inclusion, engagement, and an exceptional understanding of the challenges and the needs of people across the city. Strategies and plans were fully aligned with plans in the wider health economy. There was a demonstrated commitment to system-wide collaboration and leadership. Services were consistently implemented as a result of an ever-changing environment and these had a positive impact on patients receiving healthcare in the community. For example, the provider had recently worked with the local NHS Trust to co-design a community gynaecology service to support the primary and secondary care interface by delivering community gynaecology appointments in the women’s hubs by a GP with a special interest in gynaecology to reduce the time patients waited to be seen at the hospital. This had commenced in April 2025. The provider took action to support the wider health economy, for example, by sharing media content and posters that practices could display to support patients and national programmes, for example, childhood immunisation reminders for children reaching school age. These were also translated into several different languages. Staff wellbeing was promoted and key to maintaining a positive and motivated staff team. For example, staff were enrolled on a basic level private healthcare scheme which included access to counselling and meditation sessions should they require it. The provider had won a national award for demonstrating employee wellbeing initiatives in 2023. Staff feedback during the assessment was positive, with staff stating there was a supportive, team-based culture and all staff we spoke to were passionate about delivering a high-quality service.

The service had exceptionally inclusive leaders at all levels who understood the context in which they delivered care, treatment and support and embodied the culture and values of their workforce and organisation. We saw the provider had held an event in March 2025 to review the service’s values following feedback from staff. Leaders had a high level of understanding of the issues, challenges and local priorities and had the skills, knowledge, experience and credibility to lead effectively.

Staff told us leaders in the service were visible, approachable and responded to any concerns raised. They hosted several staff initiatives, for example, some staff had been trained to be mental health 1st aiders. They were trained to raise mental health awareness with their peers and offer confidential guidance and signposting for support. Senior management were accessible throughout the operational period, with an effective on-call system and leaders modelled the values of the practice. All staff told us they could access senior managers when they required support, even during out of hours periods. We saw the leadership team worked with other practices in the primary care network and were engaged in the development of primary care services, continually looking for ways to improve care and access to health services for patients.

The service fostered a positive culture where people felt they could speak up and their voice would be heard. The service had established Freedom to Speak up arrangements and staff were aware of how to raise concerns.

The service strongly valued diversity in their workforce. They had an inclusive and fair culture which had improved equality and equity for people who worked for them.

Policies and procedures to promote diversity and equality were in place and staff had received training in equality and diversity. We saw senior leaders had addressed concerns related to discrimination. They had carried out a staff survey in October 2024 to gain staff feedback. They had received 167 responses with 64.97% of staff reporting they were treated fairly regarding career progression regardless of ethnicity, race and gender, 31.74% said they did not know and 3.59% said they were not. Staff were asked if they had personally experienced discrimination at work, 92.17% said not by staff or managers, 6% reported they had by service users and 1.81% stated other.

Several staff had volunteered to be Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) champions. This role had been implemented to advocate and improve EDI within the service to ensure all staff had equal access to opportunities, to help educate staff and signpost colleagues on diversity and effect change in the organisation. As a result of feedback from a staff survey carried out by the EDI champions changes had been made to the organisation’s maternity entitlement.

The service had clear responsibilities, roles, systems of accountability and good governance. They used these to manage and deliver high-quality, sustainable care, treatment and support. They always acted on the best information about risk, performance and outcomes, and shared this securely with others when appropriate. There was a comprehensive library of policies, procedures, protocols and standard operating procedures which were embedded in the services’ systems and processes, and these were available to all staff including locum staff. This ensured safety and a framework for consistency in how the sites operated. There was a system in place to monitor and review policies according to guidance, legislation and practice needs. There was a detailed hub manual available to all staff working in the service which had links in the event of an emergency included. The provider carried out quarterly analysis of significant events and complaints to identify themes or trends and used information from significant events and complaints to drive audits for quality improvement. Findings from these were shared across all the providers other sites and locations to ensure continual improvement.

The provider had a system in place to monitor systems and processes at all the sites where services were carried out to ensure premises were appropriate and risks identified had been appropriately managed. There were overarching monitoring processes to ensure all staff working at the sites were appropriately recruited, trained and had regular appraisals, support and supervision. The provider had a quality improvement plan, and we saw evidence actions were being taken to address areas identified for improvement. For example, a new system for incident reporting had been implemented.

Leaders and managers supported staff, and all staff we spoke with told us they felt supported by management and were clear on their individual roles and responsibilities. Managers met with staff regularly to complete appraisals and performance reviews. Senior managers underwent 360-degree appraisals, whereby their staff could submit anonymous feedback that would be used for the manager to reflect on their management styles. The provider had established governance processes that were appropriate for their service. Managers held regular meetings which all staff, including locum staff were invited to attend. They discussed clinical concerns and emerging risks. Managers clearly recorded any actions arising from these meetings and ensured they shared these with staff. All staff received a weekly e-newsletter which included updates on policies, medicine alerts, reminders on staff roles, for example, the freedom to speak up guardian and any information staff would find helpful to ensure they were kept up to date. Staff took patient confidentiality and information security seriously.

The service clearly understood and carried out their duty to collaborate and work in partnership and services worked seamlessly for people. They always shared information and learning with partners and collaborated for improvement. The provider worked with other partners. For example, the provider had worked with the refuge council to raise awareness of healthcare services for a women’s refuge and had supplied notices and leaflets to be used in the community to educate patients whose first language was not English on what services were available to them on the NHS. The provider worked with the primary care networks and practices to ascertain what their needs were. For example, the provider supported the interface between primary and secondary care by offering a referral checking scheme. Referrals were reviewed by GPs with special interests, who either forwarded appropriate cases to secondary care or advised the referring GP on alternative options within primary care or more suitable referral pathways. All referrals were assessed within 3 days, covering 10 clinical specialties. The team had completed 21,915 clinical assessments, with 19.4% of referrals successfully managed within primary care. Feedback from practices regarding this service was consistently positive.

The service had a strong focus on continuous learning, innovation and improvement across the organisation and local system. They always encouraged creative ways of delivering equality of experience, outcome and quality of life for people. They actively contribute to safe, effective practice and research. For example, the enhanced access service was supporting a research fellow to carry out a study of the service based on patient experience. We also observed staff had been invited, in one of the weekly staff newsletters, to volunteer for research internship opportunities. Staff told us that they were encouraged to develop. For example, an operational manager was put through a formal management training program, a locum staff member was supported to undertake an ear irrigation course which was a skill that could be taken back to be utilised in their own practice. The provider had also extended learning to other primary care clinicians by hosting the first South Yorkshire Primary Care Conference on metabolic health. The provider had won several national awards in recent years for its services and innovation and had won the Health Service Journal (HSJ) award 2022 for primary and community provider of the year. The HSJ awards is an annual recognition program for healthcare.