Gough Walk Practice

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

This is the first assessment for this service since its registration with CQC. This key question has been rated as Good. This meant people’s care, treatment and support promoted equality, removed barriers or delays and protected their rights.

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 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. Care plans reflected physical, mental, emotional, and social needs of patients including those related to protected characteristics under the Equality Act. Our review of clinical records showed patients were supported to understand their condition and were mostly involved in planning for their care needs. Results from the national GP survey 2025 showed 84% of participants felt they were involved as much as they wanted to be in decisions about their care and treatment during their last general practice appointment. The local average was 88% and 91% national average.

communities, so care was joined-up, flexible and supported choice and continuity. The service was actively involved in their local primary network, where they worked in partnership with other services to improve local health inequalities. For example, the service had responded to local data which showed a high proportion of older people living alone to ask people about social isolation to improve intervention such as referrals to the social prescribers. Staff gave examples of engagement with community groups to promote the uptake of screening and vaccination programmes. The service provided a community dermatology clinic through the Patient First Social Enterprise which provided a local and convenient service for people living in Tower Hamlets.

Regular multi-disciplinary meetings were held with relevant professionals and services to discuss and plan patient care and treatment so that people’s needs could be met holistically. The practice provided support to a local care home which provided nursing and dementia care. Overall, the care home staff reported a high level of satisfaction with the quality of care provided by the practice. The GP Partner attended a multi-disciplinary team meeting every month to discuss individual patients at the care home and review their care plans.

For people with a learning disability or autism, the practice completed annual health checks and passports, to ensure information was available to health care professionals to enable continuity of care. Patients could be referred to the community mental health nurse, who worked one day a week at the service.

The service supplied appropriate, accurate and up-to-date information in formats that were tailored to individual needs. This included making reasonable adjustments for disabled people, interpreting and translation for people who don’t speak English as a first language and for deaf people who use British Sign Language. We saw information about interpreter services was visible in the reception area.

The service complied with the Accessible Information Standard and staff had completed training. Information provided by the service met the Accessible Information Standard. Patients were informed as to how to access their care records. Staff had access to the data protection and accessible information policies online. The national GP patient survey carried out from January to March 2025 had 109 responses. This found 73% of patients knew what the next step would be after contacting the service and 85% knew what the next step would be within two days of contacting the service. These results were lower than the local and national averages.

Staff made it easy for people to share feedback and ideas, or raise complaints about their care, treatment and support. Reception staff were aware of the needs of the local community. Staff could refer people with social needs, such as those experiencing social isolation or housing difficulties, to a social prescriber. Reception staff 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.

We found people had multiple ways to provide feedback. This included through NHS websites, the complaints process, the NHS Friends and Family Test (FFT) and the national patient survey. When a patient submitted an online consultation, they could opt in to taking a short survey.

The practice used a computer software system to enable them to record and audit complaints. We saw complaints were managed in line with the service’s policy. The complaints policy was available on the practice website and included information for patients about how to contact the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. Learning from incidents and complaints resulted in changes that improved care for others. The full team were involved in reviewing outcomes to maximise learning and support change.

National GP patient feedback showed that some people could not always access the care, support and treatment they needed when they needed it. The most recent GP Patient Survey data, from 2025, showed 27% of patients found it easy to get through to the GP practice by phone, which was lower than the local average 51% and national average of 53%. Only 15% of patients found it easy to contact the service using their website. This was lower than the local 47% national averages of 51%. However, the service shared Friends and Family survey results which demonstrated that patient experience of access to the service had improved. For example, FFT survey results for April to June 2025 showed 139 patients out of 159 who responded found it fairly easy to very easy to access the service.

In response to the National GP Patient Survey and feedback from members of the community the provider had identified changes to improve access to the service. For example, Gough Walk Practice had improved appointment access by introducing an online consultation service to help triage patient appointment requests and had installed a new telephone system with call back option and updated the practice website. Leaders told us they had also recruited a new GP and more reception staff.

We saw the service was proactive in ensuring patients had access to appointments. They recognised some patients experienced delays in getting through to the service to access appointments. Staff had access to telephone call data which they reviewed weekly. This meant they could review capacity and demand more effectively and they could adjust capacity over the week, to deal with busier periods. People could access the service to suit their needs for example online, in person and by telephone. Treatment rooms were available on the ground floor and there was level access and an automatic door at the entrance to the service.

Patients were able to book appointments in advance, and the service actively promoted the use of the NHS app. The service had implemented an on-call duty GP list to enable the prioritisation of patients with urgent needs. The service had engaged with the community to promote digital access to GP practices in the primary care network.

The GP national patient survey for 2025 does not request a response from patients who are specifically experiencing inequalities. Staff and leaders actively listened to people who are most likely to experience inequality in experience or outcomes and tailored their care, support and treatment in response to this. Staff and leaders considered the needs of people with different protected characteristics and made reasonable adjustments to support equity in experience and outcomes. The provider had processes to ensure people could register at the service, including those in vulnerable circumstances such as homeless people and Travellers.

Leaders 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 used reasonable adjustment alerts in patient records to support people’s access to healthcare. 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. Staff kept a palliative care register and told us patients were reviewed according to their needs and discussed during practice staff meetings. The service had processes in place to review if care and preferences had been met in line with patients wishes.