The Care Quality Commission
  • Doctor
  • GP practice

Galleries Medical Practice Also known as Galleries Health Centre

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Health Centre, The Galleries, Washington Centre, Washington, Tyne And Wear, NE38 7NQ (0191) 543 5555

Provided and run by:
Galleries Medical Practice

Important: The provider of this service changed - see old profile

All Inspections

6 July 2023

During a monthly review of our data

We carried out a review of the data available to us about Galleries Medical Practice on 6 July 2023. We have not found evidence that we need to carry out an inspection or reassess our rating at this stage.

This could change at any time if we receive new information. We will continue to monitor data about this service.

If you have concerns about Galleries Medical Practice, you can give feedback on this service.

20 February 2020

During an inspection looking at part of the service

We previously carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Galleries Medical Practice on 22 January 2019. Overall the practice was rated as Good. The domains of safe, effective, caring and well-led were rated as good and the domain responsive was rated as requires improvement.

We carried out an announced focused inspection on 21 February 2020 following our annual review of the information available to us. We focused our inspection on the following key questions:

  • Is the practice effective?
  • Is the practice caring?
  • Is the practice responsive?
  • Is the practice well-led?

Because of the assurance received from our review of information we carried forward the ratings for the following key questions:

  • Is the practice safe? – (Good- January 2019)

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

  • what we found when we inspected
  • information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
  • information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We have rated this practice as good overall and good for all population groups.

We found that:

  • The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
  • Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
  • Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
  • The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
  • The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

  • Continue to monitor the practice appointment system and patient feedback regarding the this.
  • Continue to promote and recruit members to a practice patient participation group.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care

22 January 2019

During a routine inspection

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Galleries Medical Practice on 22 January 2019 as part of our inspection programme.

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

  • what we found when we inspected
  • information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
  • information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We have rated this practice as good overall.

We have rated the domain of responsive as requires improvement because:

  • Results of the National GP survey for appointment access were lower than local and national average scores.
  • Feedback on the NHS Choices website raised concerns about the practice availability of appointments.
  • The common theme to the practice formal complaints was regarding appointment access.
  • While the practice had recently changed the appointment system following negative feedback about access from a patient survey it was too early to demonstrate whether these changes had made a difference to patient opinion.
  • However, we rated the population groups in this domain as good as services were planned and delivered in a way that met the needs of the local population.

The matters that led to the key question of ‘are services responsive’ being rated as requires improvement applied to all population groups, hence they are all rated as requires improvement for being providing responsive services. There were also some examples of good practice:

We found that:

  • The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
  • The practice had systems in place so that safety incidents were less likely to happen.
  • Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
  • Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
  • The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs.
  • The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

  • Continue to try and identify carers.
  • Continue to monitor the practice appointment system and patient feedback regarding the this.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice