Drs Jones & Blaylock Also known as Throckley Primary Care

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

We looked for evidence that staff involved people in decisions about their care and treatment and provided them advice and support. Staff regularly reviewed people’s care and worked with other services to achieve this.

At our last assessment, we rated this key question as good. At this assessment, the rating remains the same.

This service scored 71 (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 made sure people’s care and treatment was effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them.

Feedback from people using the service was positive. People felt involved in any assessment of their needs and felt confident that staff understood their individual and cultural needs.

Reception staff were aware of the needs of the local community. They used digital flags within the care records system to highlight any specific individual needs, such as the requirement for longer appointments or for a translator to be present.

The practice had a system in place to ensure people were invited back regularly for their annual health checks. Staff checked people’s health, care, and wellbeing needs during the reviews and clinical staff used templates when conducting care reviews to support the review of people’s wider health and wellbeing. The provider had effective systems to identify people with previously undiagnosed conditions.

Staff worked closely with the social prescriber and could refer people with social needs, such as those experiencing social isolation or housing difficulties. Social prescribing is a key component of Universal Personalised Care. It is an approach that connects people to activities, groups, and services in their community to meet the practical, social and emotional needs that affect their health and wellbeing.

The practice generally delivered care and treatment in line with legislation and evidence-based guidance, though some areas required improvement. For example, the clinical searches identified prescribing shortfalls namely antiplatelet medicine prescribing without gastroprotection and a lack of monitoring for salbutamol inhalers.

However, the service planned and delivered people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them.

Feedback from people using the service was mostly positive, including the National GP Patient Survey where results were mostly equal to or above the national average. From other feedback from NHS Friends and Family Test patients said they felt involved in assessment of their needs and staff understood their individual and cultural needs.

Systems were in place to ensure staff were up to date with evidence-based guidance and legislation. Clinical search results showed care was not always delivered in line with current legislation.

The practice provided us with some audits they had carried out to improve care. The practice provided us with audits of Urinary tract infections and for women who had diabetes in pregnancy. These were two cycle audits to help staff identify improvements.

The service worked well across teams and services to support people. They made sure people only needed to tell their story once by sharing their assessment of needs when people moved between different services.

Staff had access to the information they needed to appropriately assess, plan, and deliver people’s care, treatment, and support. The practice worked with other services to ensure continuity of care, including where clinical tasks were delegated to other services.

Managers of aligned care homes described cohesive joint working with staff at the practice and how this resulted in excellent care for the patients and families.

We saw examples of regular multi-disciplinary team meetings at the practice which included community staff such as district nurses, midwives and palliative care nurses. We spoke with the palliative care nurse who commented that meetings were well structured and with staff being patient centred and knowing the patients and their families well.

The service supported people to manage their health and wellbeing to maximise their independence, choice and control. The service supported people to live healthier lives and where possible, reduce their future needs for care and support.

We found patients could access appointments with a variety of clinicians in a timely manner. This included primary care network staff, including physiotherapy, mental health, a dietician, pharmacy services and social prescribing.

Staff focussed on identifying risks to patients’ health, including those in the last 12 months of their lives, patients at risk of developing a long-term condition and those with caring responsibilities. Staff supported national priorities and initiatives to improve population health. They were also proud to be an Armed Forces accredited practice, to support serving and veteran patients.

The service routinely monitored people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. They ensured that outcomes were positive and consistent, and that they met both clinical expectations and the expectations of people themselves.

The practice met or exceeded national targets for screening and immunisations, except for cervical screening test data for women aged 25 to 49 years and 50 to 64 years, with their respective intervals of 3.5 and 5.5 years, which fell slightly below the expected 80% target.

From the clinical notes we reviewed, we found that people who used the service experienced positive outcomes as set out in legislation, standards, and evidence-based clinical guidance.

Managers told us there were 60 patients currently with a learning disability registered with the practice. Staff had completed 48 annual learning disability reviews so 80%. The remaining 12 patients were being contacted by staff to encourage reviews to be completed.

When patients missed monitoring, annual reviews, or immunisation appointments, practice nurses contacted them to reassure patients and encourage them to attend, often by offering greater flexibility of appointments.

The service told people about their rights around consent and respected these when delivering person-centred care and treatment.

Staff undertook training and understood and applied legislation relating to consent. Capacity and consent were clearly recorded. Do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (DNACPR) decisions were appropriate and were made in line with relevant legislation.

The practice had a chaperone policy in place and patients were offered a chaperone when carrying out examinations. Staff who carried out chaperone duties were trained for the role and had received a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.