Colliers Wood Surgery

On this page

• 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 good. At this assessment, the rating remains the same.

This service scored 70 (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. This included reception staff having a private place to speak with patients and all staff had password access to the computer system.

National GP Patient Survey data reflected people generally felt listened to and were treated with kindness, although they practice results were slightly below the national and local averages (practice score was 77%, local and national averages respectively were 89% and 87%). Feedback we received from patients as a result of the assessment process indicated that most patients felt listened to and that staff displayed compassion. One patient commented that they experienced “genuine compassion, ensuring that each appointment is conducted with clarity and respect”.

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. For example, they had asylum seekers registered at the practice and told us that they had specific social personal needs around mental health. They had put processes in place to support these patients including checking they had interpreters and also booked double appointments as standard to ensure there was enough time to discuss their medical needs.

Patient communication needs were met to enable them to be fully involved in their care. This included having information available in other languages (including cervical screening invitations), access to a hearing loop and information available in large print.

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. Staff told us that they supported and maximised people’s independence by implementing the Accessible Standards format to communication they produced.

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. Reception staff had been trained to navigate patients to ensure those in need of appointments were offered one. Staff were trained to identify patients in need of urgent care such as those presenting with symptoms of sepsis. Staff we spoke with knew the process for referral to emergency support, including mental health crisis teams.

The service generally cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff. They had processes in place to support and enable staff to deliver person-centred care.

Staff told us most leaders valued them. Some leaders had taken steps to recognise and meet the practical wellbeing needs of staff, however some of the organisation’s policies did not always work to support the wellbeing of staff. For example, we had discussions with managers about what they did to support staff wellbeing. The policies did not reflect the practical steps that managers had told us they took (i.e. time off for caring responsibilities and sickness etc). Staff told us that they were supported by managers if they were struggling at work.