Stirling Medical Centre

On this page

• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

We looked for evidence that the service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

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

This service scored 85 (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 was exceptional at treating people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Feedback from patients was extremely positive about the way they were treated by all staff, especially the GP. Feedback referenced the positive impact being with the practice had had and was having on their life and the lives of their families.

The staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

Arrangements were in place to promote patients’ privacy. National GP Patient Survey data reflected people felt listened to and were treated with kindness.

The service treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. Patients’ personal, cultural, social, religious and equality characteristics needs were understood. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics. Patient communication needs were met to enable them to be fully involved in their care.

The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their care, treatment and wellbeing.

Staff helped patients and their carers to access advocacy and community-based services. Feedback from patients referred to how they were supported and advised on how to access other services. Examples were provided where staff had helped patients access alternative secondary care services where waiting times were less.

The service listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

There was a system for appointment triage that ensured people with immediate needs had access to services. The lead GP assessed all patient contacts to determine the most appropriate next steps for the patient. A flexible approach to seeing patients with immediate needs was adopted. For example, on the day of the site visit, a patient presenting at the practice without an appointment was immediately seen when assessed as urgent. Data provided by the provider showed in the last 12 months over a third of all patients had been seen on the day.

Staff had been trained to recognise when people needed urgent help or support and used appropriate tools and technology to assist with this. Information was available to support staff to understand the process for referring patients to emergency support services, for example, mental health crisis teams.

The provider and practice manager cared about and promoted the well-being of their staff. This was mutual among all staff. Leaders supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care. Staff were extremely positive about the leaders and the way they ensured they were valued, supported and listened to in a personal and professional capacity. Leaders had taken steps to recognise and meet the well-being needs of staff. For example, making workplace adjustments and having staff social events.