Thorpewood Medical Group Also known as Woodside Surgery

Ratings

• Overall

  Requires improvement

• Safe

  Requires improvement

• Effective

  Requires improvement

• Caring

  Good

• Responsive

  Good

• Well-led

  Requires improvement

Our view of the service

Assessment Date: 18 March 2025 to 25 March 2025. Thorpewood Medical Group is a GP practice located in Norwich, providing care and treatment to approximately 12,400 patients. Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the 7 decile (7 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others. This assessment considered the demographics of the people using the service, the context the service was working within and how this impacted service delivery.

We conducted this assessment to follow up on a breach of Regulation 17 (Good governance) identified at our 2021 inspection. Here, we assessed 33 quality statements across safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led key questions.

During our assessment, although staff spoke positively about inclusive and compassionate leadership, we identified governance concerns regarding patient monitoring, failure to fully act on successive, previously identified fire safety risks and regarding out of date clinical supervision protocols. Following our 2021 inspection, the provider was asked to improve patient monitoring arrangements and so the concerns highlight a continued breach of regulation and failure to provide good governance.

We saw evidence of where the provider had acted to address performance in areas such as cervical screening uptake and antibiotic prescribing. The service provided information people could understand. People knew how to give feedback and were confident the service took it seriously and acted on it. The service was easy to access and worked to eliminate discrimination. We saw evidence of a good learning culture where people could raise concerns. Leaders were visible and supportive.

In instances where CQC have decided to take civil or criminal enforcement action against a provider, we will publish this information on our website after any representations and/or appeals have been concluded.

People's experience of this service

Shortly before our assessment we asked people to submit feedback on care received. Nearly all of the 133 respondents gave positive feedback: covering a range of areas such as reception staff attitudes, prompt referrals and a staff listening culture. Latest national GP Patient Survey results (96 respondents between Jan-Mar 2024) highlighted concerns about phone access but we noted that in May 2024 leaders had introduced a new phone system. We further noted that two in house patient surveys undertaken before and after this introduction (April 2024 and October 2024 - 961 respondents) showed increased patient satisfaction on appointment access.

There was an active patient participation group (PPG) who represented the views of people using the service. They spoke positively about how leaders had involved their group in service improvement areas (such as the recently introduced phone system).

However, although people were highly positive about care, our assessment highlighted some instances where this care did not meet the expected standards.