Prospect Medical Group

On this page

• Overview
• Person-centred Care
• Care provision, Integration and continuity
• Providing Information
• Listening to and involving people
• Equity in access
• Equity in experiences and outcomes
• Planning for the future

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 has changed to requires improvement.

This service scored 61 (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 made sure people were at the centre of their care and treatment choices and they decided, in partnership with people, how to respond to any relevant changes in people’s needs.

Care plans reflected physical, mental, emotional, and social needs of patients including those related to protected characteristics under the Equality Act. Our review of clinical records showed patients were supported to understand their condition and were involved in planning for their care needs. They were also involved in decisions about their care.

The service understood 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 the diverse needs of its community, for example, building relationships with community groups to promote the take up of screening programmes. There were established mechanisms for engaging with the community healthcare provider.

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

Information to promote the take up of screening and immunisation programmes was available in a range of languages. The practice had access to interpreter services, including British Sign Language. Information provided by the service met the Accessible Information Standard. Patients were informed as to how to access their care records.

The service were not proactive in asking patients to share feedback and ideas or acting on that feedback. In their own business plan they acknowledged that feedback from patient surveys and questionnaires had been disappointing, and they were aware this was something they needed to work on.

We requested any patient feedback from the practice which had been collected. None of the results provided were analysed or conclusions drawn from them. The information was reactive to our requests. There was no action plan to address negative patient feedback, seek views and draw up a plan to improve.

The practice did not have a patient participation group (PPG) therefore could not gather the views of patients in this way. The staff did tell us they had tried very hard to recruit members for this and it was in their business plan to focus on. Take up for the group was poor even though they had been active in trying to recruit members and it had not been possible.

All staff we spoke with were able to share examples of complaints that the practice had received and we saw they responded to them effectively.

The service did not always make sure that people could access the care, support and treatment they needed when they needed it.

At our previous inspection we said the practice should continue to monitor and review the effectiveness of the practice’s appointment system.

The percentage of respondents to the GP National Patient Survey on how easy it was to contact their GP practice on the phone was 20.5%, national average 49.7%. The percentage of respondents to the same survey who responded positively to the overall experience of contacting their GP practice was 41.8%, national average of 67.3%.

Staff questionnaires, which we sent out mentioned that more GP appointments were needed to improve access.

The commission received 5 complaints in the 12 months prior to our assessment. The themes from these were the attitude of the staff and issues with obtaining an appointment.

We shared a link for patients to give us feedback whilst our assessment was ongoing. Some of this feedback mentioned that access could be a problem for them.

The management at the practice told us the GPs liked a traditional approach to appointments, for patients to have access to a GP. They had a nurse practitioner who could see patients, however patients still preferred to see the GPs and the nurse would have appointments free.

The practice had recognised they had received poor feedback for access in their business plan. However, did not have a formulated action plan to improve access.

The practice shared with us work they had done to improve access; they worked with NHS England on a general practice improvement plan in 2023. More staff had been deployed first thing on a morning to answer telephones to reduce physical reception queues at opening time. A call board and a navigation tool to help staff was introduced. The practice promoted the use of online tools. They had shadowed another practice to look at their triage system. The practice sent us evidence of call queues reducing.

Staff and leaders listened to information about people who are most likely to experience inequality in experience or outcomes and tailored their care, support and treatment in response to this.

Staff treated people equally and without discrimination. Leaders proactively sought ways to address any barriers to improving people’s experience and worked with local organisations, including within the voluntary sector, to address any local health inequalities. 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 and Travellers. Patients whose first language was not English were offered interpreting services and longer appointments.

People were supported to plan for important life changes, so they could have enough time to make informed decisions about their future, including at the end of their life.

Our records review showed people were supported to consider their wishes for their end-of-life care, including cardiopulmonary resuscitation. This information was shared with other services when necessary.