Leylands Medical Centre

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 requires improvement. At this assessment, the rating has changed and the practice is now rated good.

This service scored 79 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The practice always 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.

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 practice had undertaken quality improvement projects which demonstrated a commitment to providing person-centred care. Examples of this included a project to improve uptake of cancer screening by providing personalised care to people with learning disabilities. The practice reviewed their approach to health checks and considered whether patients were receiving sufficiently accessible information about cancer screening.

They identified patients with learning disabilities in the relevant bowel screening age range and shared this with the screening hub so that patients could be recognised in advance when screening became due. This enabled the screening hub to arrange for easy-read bowel screening documentation to be sent out to patients at the appropriate time. The screening hub also linked these patients with the local learning disability care team so that they could receive additional support in understanding the screening process and making an informed decision.

In addition, the practice utilised learning disability health checks as an opportunity to discuss bowel cancer screening, answer questions, and encourage uptake where possible.

The practice adopted a proactive approach to advanced care planning, this included streamlining of identification of patients via regular searches of the clinical system through a single clinician, a dedicated palliative care waiting list summarising the patient diagnosis, date of last review and date for next review and a designated member of the reception supervisor team with responsibility for scheduling reviews. Palliative and advanced care reviews were offered as home visits to improve patient comfort, ensure family members could be present and allow sufficient time for conversations to take place. The practice had completed 126 palliative care and advanced care planning visits over the previous 12 months.

Results from the National GP Patient Survey (2025) showed that 89% of respondents felt the healthcare professional they saw or spoke to was good at listening to them during their last general practice appointment (national average 87%).

The practice 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 and dedicated work to improve identification of diseases with high prevalence within the patient demographic. There were established mechanisms for engaging with the community healthcare provider.

The practice was exceptional at developing appropriate, accurate and up-to-date information in formats that were tailored to individual needs.

The practice had access to interpreter services, including British Sign Language (BSL). The practice had identified a gap in BSL services and proactively liaised with the new interpretation service to pilot a video service to support patients during consultations. This improved flexibility, reduced barriers to access and enabled patient to receive care in a more timely way.

Information provided by the service met the Accessible Information Standard. Patients were informed as to how to access their care records.

The practice had undertaken targeted projects to support vulnerable patients to understand the benefits of immunisation and screening via outreach projects, working with community groups and attendance at community events.

In response to patient feedback about results from the NHS Health Check, the practice redesigned how information was provided to patients. This involved creating a template within the clinical system which extracted relevant data into a patient friendly report which could be sent as a mobile-friendly PDF document where appropriate. The report explained the information more clearly but also supported prevention and highlighted relevant outstanding vaccination and cancer screening opportunities. Each report included top tips written by the GP partners which were tailored to the individual patient.

The practice made it easy for people to share feedback and ideas, or raise complaints about their care, treatment and support. They involved people in decisions about their care and told them what had changed as a result.

We saw complaints were managed in line with the practice’s policy. Learning from complaints was evident and staff were able to identify changes made as a result of patient feedback, including complaints.

The practice made sure that people could access the care, support and treatment they needed when they needed it.

Results from the National GP Patient Survey (2025) in relation to access were lower than the national average, with 25% of respondents reporting they found it easy to contact the practice using their website (national average 51%) and 37% found it easy to get through to the practice by phone (national average 53%). In response to this the practice had wholly redesigned the appointment and access system around a triage-first model. This changed how patients requested help, how requests were accessed, how capacity was organised to enable outcomes to be delivered on the same day.

The practice had created a dedicated GP led triage team, care navigation team, reshaped clinic structures and redesigned the wider appointment system so that every patient request for clinical help received an outcome on the same day.

The impact of the new system has resulted in the average time from a patient request to a documented outcome being around 8 minutes, and the average clinician time to record a triage decision being around 32 seconds.

These improvements were expected to be reflected in the 2026 National GP Patient Survey results.

The practice offered a variety of appointments including face to face, telephone and home visits.

Staff and leaders actively 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.

Feedback provided by people using the service, both to the provider as well as to CQC, was positive. 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. For example, in preparation for implementation of the triage-first access model, reception staff highlighted concerns that some patients could struggle with online systems and require more support. In response to this the practice organised a digital enablement day across all sites. Patients were invited to attend via text message, letters and telephone calls. Members of the reception team were trained to become online access champions and support patients to use the online consultation system. The champions worked directly with patients to demonstrate how the system worked. This included supporting patients to access the system and their online record, completing an online request and understanding how responses would be provided.

The provider had processes to ensure people could register at the practice, including those in vulnerable circumstances. Staff used appropriate systems to capture and review feedback from people using the service, including those who did not speak English or have access to the internet.

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.