All inspections: Fressingfield Medical Centre

Date of Assessment: 9 June 2026. Fressingfield Medical Centre is a GP service and delivers services to approximately 6400 people under a contract held with NHS England. There is a branch site at Stradbroke Medical Centre, Wilby Road, Stradbroke. There is a dispensary at both sites. We visited Fressingfield Medical Centre as part of this assessment. According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the service area is approximately 97.9% White, 0.6% Asian, 0.9% Mixed, 0.4% Black and 0.2% Other. Information published by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows deprivation within the service population group is in the 7th decile (7 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the service population is relative to others.

This was a focused assessment. We undertook this assessment due to the length of time since our last assessment. We assessed 10 quality statements from across all 5 key questions. 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.

Staff kept facilities clean and maintained equipment appropriately to ensure people were kept safe. They assessed and managed the risk of infection well and took steps to control the risk of it spreading. There were enough staff with the right skills, qualifications and experience.

Staff supported people to live healthier lives. People’s care and treatment were closely monitored to ensure they consistently received positive and effective outcomes. Staff regularly reviewed people’s care and worked with other services to achieve this.

Staff treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion, and respected their privacy and dignity.

People could access care, treatment and support when they needed it. Leaders and staff were alert to discrimination and inequality that could disadvantage groups of people who used the service and sought ways to address any barriers.

The service had a vision and culture, which prioritised the needs of the people who used their service and the wider community. Staff understood their individual roles and responsibilities. Leaders accounted for the actions, behaviours and performance of staff through clear and effective governance processes.

This practice is rated as good overall. At our last inspection published on 13 January 2020, the practice was rated as good overall, with outstanding for providing responsive service and requires improvement for providing safe services. The requires improvement rating for safe was because

Patients who were prescribed certain high-risk medicines that required regular blood tests prior to repeat prescribing of these medicines, were not consistently monitored.
There was not an effective governance system in place to be assured that all medicines alerts published by the Medicines and Health products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) were acted upon by the provider.

We undertook a desk based review on 11 August 2020 to check the provider had made improvements. We found improvements had been made and the practice is now rated as good for providing safe services.

At this review we found:

The practice had improved and embedded the process for patients prescribed medicines which required a more frequent monitoring schedule to ensure safe prescribing. We reviewed the records of seven patients who were prescribed medicines which required additional monitoring before being reissued. All of these patients had appropriate blood tests undertaken and the results reviewed, before medicines had been reissued.
Improvements had been made to the system for recording and acting on patient safety alerts. We reviewed four safety alerts and four patients who were affected by these and we found the alerts we reviewed had been acted on appropriately.
The practice had continued work to improve their antibiotic prescribing.
The practice had improved their uptake of cervical screening. This had increased from 77.7% in 2018 to 80.4% in 2019. Snapshot data taken on 31 March 2020 showed this had further increased to 80.9%. They had met the Public Health England target of 80%. Promotional material, opportunistic screening, flexibility of appointment time and contacting patients who did not attend were used to improve the uptake. In addition, patients who were overdue screening were contacted by a practice nurse, rather than the cervical screening administrator, so that any clinical issues could be discussed.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care.

We carried out an inspection of Fressingfield Medical Centre on 2 December 2019. This was due to the length of time since the last inspection. Following our review of the information available to us, including information provided by the practice, we completed a comprehensive inspection. This was because there may have been a significant change to the quality of care provided since the last inspection. We inspected the following key questions:

Are services safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led?

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

what we found when we inspected
information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We have rated this practice as requires improvement for providing safe services and outstanding for providing responsive services and for all population groups. Due to our rating aggregation principles the practice is rated as good overall.

The practice was rated as requires improvement for providing safe services because:

Patients who were prescribed certain high-risk medicines that required regular blood test monitoring prior to repeat prescribing of these medicines were not consistently monitored. The practice reviewed this process immediately following the inspection and made improvements. The improved system needed to be embedded.
There was not an effective governance system in place to be assured that all medicines alerts published by the MHRA were acted upon by the provider. The practice reviewed this process immediately following the inspection and made improvements. The improved system needed to be embedded.

We rated the practice as outstanding for providing responsive services because:

Feedback from the National GP patient survey was above and significantly above local and national averages in relation to access. Feedback from patients was consistently positive.
Services were tailored to meet the needs of individual patients. They were delivered in a flexible way that ensured choice and continuity of care. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
The provider had undertaken a meaningful consultation with patients to identify ways to improve their access and responsiveness and acted on the findings. For example, by adding additional clinics and times to better meet the needs of their patient population.
Patient preferences and availability for their appointments were monitored by the provider and people requiring regular appointments to manage their health were invited to clinics in line with their preferences. The impact of this approach was a reduction in administration for both patients and the practice; which increased capacity to handle queries and support patients more effectively.

These outstanding areas related to all population groups and due to our ratings aggregation principles, all population groups were rated as outstanding.

We also rated the practice as good for providing effective, caring and well led services because:

Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
Clinical staff gave patients time to be involved in their care and treatment decisions.
The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centred care.

The areas where the provider must make improvements are:

Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

Continue work to review prescribing to ensure it is appropriate, especially in relation to areas of higher prescribing rates in line with recommended national guidance for relevant medicines.
Continue to work to improve the uptake of cervical screening.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Fressingfield Medical Centre on 19 January 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows;

There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and that there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the Duty of Candour.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

Ensure the dispensary is only accessible to authorised staff.
The practice needed to ensure that a record is made in the child’s notes if they fail to attend an appointment.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)

Chief Inspector of General Practice

During our inspection on 15 August 2013, we found the service to be welcoming with friendly staff. People who used the service told us they were happy with the appointment system. One person told us: 'They always have emergency appointments; they always fit you in if you need it.' Another person told us: 'They always ask first, I need to examine you, is that all right? That kind of thing, it's all nicely done not frightening.'

We saw that on arrival at the service people could speak to reception staff or use the touch in booking screen. We saw that staff spoke politely to people and consultations were carried out in private treatment rooms. One person told us: 'They have always taken good care of me.'

Information was clearly displayed for people, including health promotion, access to support services and information about the practice and the services provided. A visiting health care professional told us: 'We work together. It's in the patient's interest to get the best for them.'

People told us that their treatment was clearly explained to them and they were able to ask questions and make choices about their medication. This enabled people to make informed decisions regarding their care.

During our inspection we saw from the records we looked at that staff had received regular training, supervisions and appraisals. Appropriate pre-employment checks had been carried out.

The people we spoke with were happy with the service and did not have any concerns or issues about the care and treatment they received. One person told us: 'I come here when I'm poorly and they usually make me better.'

Fressingfield Medical Centre

All Inspections

During an assessment under our new approach

11 August 2020

During an inspection looking at part of the service

02/12/2019

During an inspection looking at part of the service

19 January 2016

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)

15 August 2013

During a routine inspection