Walkden Medical Practice

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.

People who provided feedback told us they felt listened to and that staff were helpful and kind.

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. Staff told us that following a health-related incident in the waiting area a privacy screen had been purchased.

National GP Patient Survey data reflected people felt listened to and were treated with kindness.

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.

Feedback from staff and training records indicated patients’ personal, cultural, social, religious and equality characteristics needs were met. Patient communication needs were met to enable them to be fully involved in their care.

The practice ensured they understood the needs of the LGBT+ communities and war veterans, through formal accreditation. They had attained gold accreditation for Pride in Practice which confirmed staff had completed training and developed strategies for improving health outcomes for LGBT+ communities.

Staff had also participated in fundraising activities, such as sponsored runs, for health-related charities.

The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

The practice had completed a project looking at the number and demographics of carers registered at the practice and what might help them day to day.

We noted that the practice had increased the number of face-to-face appointments. We noted a busy and vibrant waiting room on the day of inspection.

Staff helped patients and their carers to access advocacy and community-based services.

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, however, it was not possible to be fully assured that all immediate needs were recognised ensuring people always had access to the correct service.

Staff we spoke with knew the process for referral to emergency support, including mental health crisis teams.

The service was able to demonstrate care about and promotion of the wellbeing of their staff. Evidence was presented which demonstrated that staff completed training; had day to day access to managers and peer support.

However, evidence of one to one supervision and appraisals for administrative staff was not available.

The provider used staff questionnaires to enable staff to give periodics feedback about working at the practice.

Team building days had been established within the practice.

Staff told us they liked working at the practice and felt valued by leaders as workers. They also told us some aspects of communication needed to be improved and working between the triage hub and ordinary administrative duties was at times challenging.