The Shaftesbury Medical Centre

Date of Assessment: 8 July 2026. At our previous assessment in 2025, we found concerns including a breach of Regulation 17 – Good governance. This led to a rating of requires improvement in the Well-led key question. This assessment was to review the progress of the service on the concerns we found. This assessment found improvements in the areas of concern and that there was no longer a breach of the regulations. The service is now rated as Good in the Well-led key question and overall.

The Shaftesbury Medical Centre is a GP practice and delivers service to 5510 under a contract held with NHS England. The National General Practice Profiles states that the ethnicity of the practice population is 42% Asian, 36% White, 9% Black, 4.2% Mixed and 9.3% Other. Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the 6th decile (6 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others. This assessment considered the demographics of the people using the service, the context the service was working within and how this impacted service delivery. Where relevant, further commentary is provided in the quality statements section of this report.

The Practice had a register for vulnerable adults and children. Patients on the registers were coded appropriately and had the appropriate pop-up alerts to make staff aware. The only issue we found in regard to this was that household members of adults on the register were not coded. The practice recognised the complexity of coding in regard to household members for adults and were going to hold a clinical safeguarding meeting to review the most appropriate method for coding households of adult safeguarding patients. The service made sure there were enough qualified, skilled and experienced staff, who received effective support, supervision and development. Appraisals were seen for both salaried and locum staff.

Date of Assessment: 28/04/2025 to 01/05/2025 with an additional call scheduled on the 19/06/2025. The assessment was due to an aged rating. The Shaftesbury Medical Centre is a GP practice and delivers service to 5,456 patients under a contract held with NHS England. The National General Practice Profiles states that the ethnicity of the practice population is 42.31% Asian, 35.82% White, 4.34% Mixed, 9.27% Black and 8.27% Other. Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the 7th decile (7 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others. This assessment considered the demographics of the people using the service, the context the service was working within and how this impacted service delivery. Where relevant, further commentary is provided in the quality statements section of this report.

The service had a good learning culture and people could raise concerns. People were protected and kept safe. Staff understood and managed risks. The facilities and equipment met the needs of people, were clean and well-maintained and any risks mitigated.

People were involved in assessments of their needs. Staff reviewed assessments taking account of people’s communication, personal and health needs. Staff took decisions in people’s best interests where they did not have capacity. The service worked well across teams and services to support people.

People were treated with kindness and compassion. Staff protected their privacy and dignity. They treated them as individuals and supported their preferences. People had choice in their care and treatment. The service supported staff wellbeing.

People were involved in decisions about their care. The service provided information people could understand. People knew how to give feedback and were confident the service took it seriously and acted on it. The service understood the diverse health and care needs of people and their local communities. Care was joined-up, flexible and supported choice and continuity. The service was easy to access and worked to eliminate discrimination.

Leaders were visible, knowledgeable and supportive, helping staff develop in their roles. However, we found that the service did not always have clear systems of good governance. We found that the practice did not have a safeguarding register for adults. During our on-site visit, we found that there were gaps in training and recruitment files for some locum staff. We found that there were gaps in training files for some salaried staff. This was actioned after the on-site inspection, and we saw evidence that staff were now all up to date with their required training and recruitment files.

We found breaches of regulation in relation to Regulation 17 – Good governance. We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.