Benfield Park Medical Group

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• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

We looked for evidence that staff involved people in decisions about their care and treatment and provided them advice and support. Staff regularly reviewed people’s care and worked with other services to achieve this.
At our last assessment, we rated this key question as good. At this assessment, the rating remains the same.
 

This service scored 63 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Some of the time the service made sure that people’s care and treatment were effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care, wellbeing and communication needs in partnership with them. People spoke positively about the support they received and told us they felt involved in their assessments and confident that staff understood their individual and cultural needs. Reception staff demonstrated awareness of the needs of the local community and used digital flags within the clinical system to highlight specific requirements, such as the need for longer appointments or access to translation services.

Most of the time, the service planned and delivered people’s care in partnership with them, taking account of what was important and what mattered to individuals. Systems were in place to ensure staff remained up to date with evidence‑based guidance and applicable legislation. Care was largely delivered in line with national guidance, with treatment decisions generally supported by appropriate assessment and clinical judgement.
However, we also noted occasions where the service did not fully follow guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the organisation responsible for developing evidence‑based recommendations to improve health and social care. For example, in asthma management, incorrect steroid doses were sometimes prescribed, safety‑netting advice was not always clearly recorded, and appropriate follow‑up after exacerbations did not always take place.

The service worked well across teams and services to support people. They made sure people only needed to tell their story once by sharing their assessment of needs when people moved between different services.
Staff had access to the information they needed to appropriately assess, plan, and deliver people’s care, treatment, and support. The service worked with other services to ensure continuity of care, including where clinical tasks were delegated to other services.

The service supported people to manage their health and wellbeing in order to maximise their independence, choice and control. Staff encouraged and enabled people to live healthier lives and, where possible, reduce their future need for care and support. They supported national priorities and initiatives aimed at improving population health, such as smoking cessation and weight management programmes. The service used a range of communication methods to promote health and wellbeing campaigns, including social media, display screens within the practice, the practice website and text messaging.
Staff were proactive in identifying risks to patients’ health, including individuals in the last 12 months of life, people at risk of developing long‑term conditions and those with caring responsibilities.

Most of the time, the service routinely monitored people’s care and treatment to support continuous improvement and ensure outcomes were consistent and aligned with clinical standards. When we assessed the service, we found that the practice had completed a comprehensive audit programme across prescribing, chronic disease management, and internal processes, including full‑cycle audits on children’s asthma and opioid reduction. Nurse and pharmacist‑led audits were undertaken with the aim of supporting governance and ongoing quality improvement activity.
Childhood immunisation uptake for some indicators exceeded national targets. For example, 94.2% of children aged 2 had received the first dose of the MMR vaccine, and 92.5% of children aged 1 had completed the primary immunisation course for diphtheria, tetanus, polio, pertussis, Hib and hepatitis B, both above the 90% national target.
However, the practice did not meet all national screening and immunisation targets. Cervical screening uptake for patients aged 50 to 64 was 76.4%, below the 80% target, and uptake of the second MMR dose for children aged 5 was 81.9%, below the national target of 90%.
 

The service informed people of their rights in relation to consent and respected these when providing person centred care and treatment. During our assessment, we reviewed records showing that Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) decisions had been completed where appropriate and were made in line with relevant legislation and guidance. However, we did not find the associated documentation in the records we reviewed, such as capacity assessments or other relevant supporting information that would normally accompany DNACPR decisions.

After the assessment the provider told us about the improvements they were making.