Forum Family Practice

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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.

At our last assessment, we rated this key question as Outstanding. At this assessment, the rating has changed to Good. At this assessment we found that some of those areas previously regarded as outstanding practice were now embedded throughout the majority of GP practices. While the provider had maintained this good practice, the threshold to achieve an outstanding rating had not been reached. The practice is therefore now rated good for providing caring services.

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 always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

Arrangements were in place to promote patients’ privacy. National GP Patient Survey data reflected people felt listened to and were treated with kindness. In the most recent National GP Patient Survey the results for patients who stated that during their last appointment, the healthcare professional was very good or fairly good at listening to them was 92.8% compared to the national average of 86.9%.

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.

The service treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

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 practice provided us with data from their learning disability register, 80% of patients had received annual health checks and 72% of patients had received their flu vaccine.

The practice maintained a carers register; they had carried out work over the last 3 years to identify more carers and the list had increased. Carers were able to be identified from the practice clinical system and were offered health checks and vaccinations.

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.

In the most recent National GP Patient Survey the results for patients who stated that during their last appointment, the healthcare professional was very good or fairly good at listening to them was 92.6% compared to the national average of 86.9%.

We spoke with a representative from 1 of the care homes where the practice had patients who were resident. They gave us positive feedback. The healthcare professionals did a regular ward round, and the practice were responsive to requests from patients at the care home.

The service cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care.

We received almost wholly positive feedback from staff about working at the practice. Staff were proud of the organisation and spoke highly of the culture and how they were valued. They felt they provided good care for patients. There were high levels of staff engagement and development. Staff were actively encouraged to raise concerns.

Staff told us they were valued by leaders. Leaders had taken steps to recognise and meet the wellbeing needs of staff, which included the necessary resources and facilities for safe working, such as regular breaks and rest areas. Staff reported being supported if they were struggling at work.