The Lonsdale Medical Centre

On this page

• Overview
• Care provision, Integration and continuity
• Providing Information
• Equity in access
• Equity in experiences and outcomes

We looked for evidence that the service met people’s needs, and that staff treated people equally and without discrimination. At our last assessment, we rated this key question as Good. At this assessment, the rating remains the same.

This service scored 82 (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 an exceptional understanding of the diverse health and care needs of people and their local communities, so care was joined-up, flexible and supported choice and continuity.

We saw the practice worked in partnership with other services to meet the needs of its patient population. The practice had tailored its services to meet diverse needs, for example, establishing and opening a weekly wellbeing cafe with themed events. Recent events had included promoting the value of cancer screening programmes.

There were established mechanisms for engaging with the community healthcare teams. We spoke with representatives of the local palliative care team who described the practice as notably proactive and responsive in working together with them to support people coming to the end of life and their families.

The service supplied appropriate, accurate and up-to-date information in formats that were tailored to individual needs.

Information about common health conditions was available in a range of languages. The practice had access to interpreter services, including British Sign Language which they used. Information provided by the service met the Accessible Information Standard. Patients were informed how to access their care records.

The practice had recently reviewed and updated its website in response to feedback from patients who found information about how to book an appointment unclear. We received consistent feedback that people had found this helpful and the system was working well.

The practice put information about the dedicated practice telephone line for people over 75 on the front page of its website.

The service made sure that people could access the care, support and treatment they needed when they needed it.

In response to the National GP Patient Survey data and from feedback from members of the community the provider had made changes to improve access to the service. For example, they had introduced a GP-led appointment triage system. The leaders had reviewed alternative systems to identify one with a user-friendly and straightforward interface. People without digital access could contact the practice by telephone or in person to submit the relevant details. Patients we spoke with told us they found the new system was easy to use and they had received a speedy and appropriate response.

The reception team also reported on the system positively and said they had enough appointments to meet people’s needs. The practice leaders benchmarked appointment capacity against other practices using published NHS data and had above average capacity.

There were systems in place to provide continuity of doctor although this could not always be achieved particularly if the person needed an appointment quickly. Individual requests were added to the system and taken into account by the reception team when booking appointments wherever possible.

Appointments were available outside working hours including on Saturday by appointment and through the Primary Care Network hub service.

Treatment rooms were available on the ground floor and the service was fully physically accessible.

Staff and leaders were innovative in how they responded to people who are most likely to experience inequality in experience or outcomes. Staff and leaders actively used this information to provide exceptionally tailored care, support and treatment in response to this.

Feedback provided by people using the service, both to the provider as well as to CQC, was mostly positive. Leaders sought ways to address any barriers to improving people’s experience and worked with local organisations, including within the voluntary sector, to address local health inequalities. For example, the practice had set up a separate telephone line for people aged over 75 which was staffed by older team members and which was advertised on the front page of the practice website. We received positive feedback about how helpful this was from older people using the service.

The practice had set up a community wellbeing cafe in partnership with a local voluntary organisation. We spoke with a representative of this organisation who told us that the practice team had reached out to them about starting up the cafe originally to support people with dementia and their carers, for example, by providing a hot meal. The cafe had been a great success and was attended by around 30 people every week with the focus broadening to support positive community engagement more generally. Staff told us they enjoyed dropping in to the cafe and meeting people outside of the formal work environment.

Staff understood the importance of providing an inclusive approach to care and made adjustments to support equity in people’s experience and outcomes. The provider had processes to ensure people could register at the practice, including those in vulnerable circumstances such as homeless people. The practice promoted the fact that it was signed up as a ‘Safe practice’ and open to all, including recent migrants and people waiting for asylum claims to be processed.

Staff used appropriate systems to capture and review feedback from people using the service, including those who did not speak English or have access to the internet.