Railway Surgery

We carried out a targeted assessment of The Railway Surgery in relation to the responsive key question. This assessment was carried out on 23 January 2024 without a site visit. Overall, the practice is rated as Good. We rated the key question of responsive as Requires improvement.

Safe – good (carried over from the previous inspection)

Effective - good (carried over from the previous inspection)

Caring - good (carried over from the previous inspection)

Responsive – Requires Improvement

Well-led - good (carried over from the previous inspection)

Following our previous inspection in July 2019, the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions. At this inspection, we rated the practice as requires improvement for providing responsive services.

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Railway Surgery our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection as part of our GP-responsive assessment programme.

We carried out this assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are working to try to meet demand for access and to better understand the experiences of people who use services and providers.

We recognise the work that GP practices have been engaged in to continue to provide safe, quality care to the people they serve. We know colleagues are doing this while demand for general practice remains exceptionally high, with more appointments being provided than ever. In this challenging context, access to general practice remains a concern for people. Our strategy makes a commitment to deliver regulation driven by people’s needs and experiences of care. These assessments of the responsive key question include looking at what practices are doing innovatively to improve patient access to primary care and sharing this information to drive improvement.

How we carried out the assessment

This assessment was carried out remotely.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.

Our findings

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 found that:

• The practice had made changes to their services following the poor responses to the GP national patient survey data.
• Patients were given options for booking appointments to make access to the practice more streamlined.
• The provider had trained staff in recognising changes to health conditions to access the correct clinician without delays.
• Longer appointment times were available for those with complex needs.
• Learning disability patients had appointments offered at times to suit their needs and home visits supported for patients who struggled to attend the practice.
• The provider would involve all staff with complaints to gain feedback and opportunities to learn.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Continue to improve patient satisfaction with access to the practice.

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

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Health Care