Newbury Street Practice

Ratings

• Overall

  Good

• Safe

  Good

• Effective

  Good

• Caring

  Good

• Responsive

  Good

• Well-led

  Good

Our view of the service

Date of inspection: 15 April to 17 April 2026.

Newbury Street Practice is a GP practice in Wantage, Oxfordshire and delivers GP services to approximately 15,990 patients under a contract held with NHS England. The practice is a GP practice within NHS Thames Valley Integrated Care Board (ICB).

The national General Practice profiles states that the practice population largely follows the national averages in terms of age profiles. Further data shows, states that 93.6% of people using this service are White and 6.4% of people are Asian, Black, Mixed, or other ethnic groups. Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the 9th decile (9 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others. This inspection 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.

We have inspected the practice on 5 previous occasions in 2013, 2016, 2022, 2023 and 2024. The most recent inspections in 2022, 2023 and 2024 highlighted concerns with the practices provision of safe services. In 2022, the practice was rated inadequate overall, improvements were made and the practice was rated requires improvement in 2023. Further improvements were made however, in January 2024, due to continued concerns relating to the delivery of safe care and treatment and governance systems, the practice remained rated as requires improvement. These concerns resulted in breaches of Regulation 12 (Safe care and treatment) and Regulation 17 (Good governance).

We carried out this inspection to follow up on concerns identified during our previous inspections in 2023 and 2024. We assessed 8 quality statements across the safe, effective, caring and well-led key questions. We have scored each of these quality statements. We found the provider had made the improvements and is no longer in breach of regulations and the new overall rating following this inspection is good.

At this inspection we saw:

• Safe: The practice had made improvements and improved the processes which supported a good learning culture. Staff told us they were supported to raise concerns and leaders investigated incidents thoroughly. Further improvements had been made in relation to the practices clinical oversight of medicines, we saw the practices approach to medicines reflected current and relevant best practice and professional guidance.

• Effective: Improvements had been made resulting in care and treatment being based on latest evidence and good practice. Patients with long term conditions had received routine monitoring tests and diagnoses were recorded accurately.

• Caring: The practice promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled them to deliver person centred care. This was confirmed by verbal and written feedback from practice staff.

• Well-Led: The practice had made a series of improvements and taken action to address findings from the previous inspection. The introduction and refinement of a new multi-disciplinary team, referred to as the Safety and Quality Assurance Team (SQuAT) improved the overall clinical governance within the practice.

People's experience of this service

Patient feedback was mixed in relation to how they accessed care and treatment and the overall quality of the care they received. This was reflected in the national GP Patient Survey 2025, for example:

• 26% of respondents found it easy to get through to the practice by telephone. This was significantly lower when compared to the national average (53%).
• 57% of respondents found it easy to contact the practice by using the NHS App. This was higher when compared to the national average (49%).
• 89% of respondents were involved as much as they wanted to be in decisions about their care and treatment during their last appointment. This was comparable to the national average (91%).
• 68% of respondents described their overall experience of the practice as good. This was lower when compared to the national average (75%).

In response to these findings, the practice had worked with the patient participation group (PPG), reviewed the full survey responses and launched a series of improvement actions. The areas of focus were access, communication and continuity to ensure every patient received the highest standard of care. The practice and the PPG were optimistic the next national GP Patient survey would reflect an improved level of patient satisfaction.

We saw more recent patient feedback had significantly improved, this included feedback sourced from the in-house practice survey, NHS Friends and Family Test results and feedback shared with CQC. For example:

• The practice promoted and monitored patient feedback that was collected via the NHS Friends and Family Test results. We reviewed the most recent responses collected and verified from March 2026 (219 responses), February 2026 (204 responses) and January 2026 (250 responses). Using the combined responses from the last 3 months (673 responses), 629 responses (93%) rated the service received at the practice as either ‘Good’ or ‘Very Good’.

• We received feedback from representatives of 4 care homes who had residents (a combination of 155 patients) registered with the practice. The majority of feedback was positive regarding the practice providing a caring, compassionate and accessible service through weekly ward rounds. Feedback highlighted the visiting teams were proactive, engaging, extremely attentive, kind and provided excellent care and support. Further feedback highlighted the continuity of care and the long-standing positive relationships between the practice, the care home and the residents. We saw and heard the practice was working with the care home who provided mixed feedback to ensure the service received was optimised.

• We received feedback from patients as a result of the practice sharing information and the direct website link to ‘CQC Give Feedback on Care’ to patients. This feedback was almost entirely positive. Patients highlighted they felt the practice had made a series of changes and improvements and gave examples of staff being kind and compassionate. Feedback highlighted many examples of practice staff providing exceptional levels of person-centred care and being empowered as a partner in their care.

There was an active patient participation group (PPG) of 10 members who represented the views of people using the practice. We spoke with representatives from the PPG, and they described how leaders within the practice had involved the PPG and made a series of positive changes following feedback. The PPG highlighted how they worked in unison with the practice and how they influenced changes and improved services for patients at the practice by offering to test and feedback on proposed new and revised services. The representatives also provided feedback from their perspective as patients. This feedback aligned to the other positive patient feedback collected throughout this inspection.