- GP practice
Ling House Medical Centre
Report from 1 July 2024 assessment
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
We carried out an announced comprehensive assessment of Ling House Medical Centre on 27 and 29 August 2024. The assessment was carried out as the practice is currently unrated due to a change in their registration with the Care Quality Commission from partnership to an organisation. Ling House Medical Centre is an NHS GP practice which provides primary care services to a patient population of 20,078 in Keighley, West Yorkshire. The practice is situated within the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and is part of Wharfedale, Airedale & Craven Alliance Primary Care Network, which is made up of 7 GP practices. Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the lowest decile (1 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others. According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 58% White, 38% Asian, 2% Mixed, 1% Black and 1% Other. The practice opening times are 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday. Extended access is provided on Tuesday from 6.30pm to 8pm. At this assessment we reviewed all the quality statements across the safe, effective, caring, responsive, and well-led key questions. We spoke with stakeholders, leaders and staff, and reviewed staff and patient feedback. We reviewed documentary evidence, completed remote clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system and made on-site observations. Overall, we found the practice provided safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led services. The practice was aware of their challenges around patient access and had made some changes to their access model and appointment availability. The practice was located in an area of high deprivation with associated health inequality challenges and were involved in numerous health initiatives to drive patient outcomes. In particular, childhood immunisations and cervical screening.
People's experience of this service
As part of this assessment, we reviewed patient feedback from the NHS Friends and Family Test (FFT), National GP Patient Survey (2024), and an internal survey undertaken by the practice in July 2024. We also asked the practice to invite patients to share their experience of the service they received via the Give Feedback on Care form on the Care Quality Commission’s website. We received 8 responses, all of which were positive. In particular, patients told us staff were caring, professional, friendly and helpful, and that there had been improvements to the appointments system. The FFT data collected by the practice for the period July 2023 to July 2024, of which there were 406 responses, showed 49% of patients found the practice to be very good or good and 23% found the practice to be poor or very poor. The remainder of patients, 28%, responded that the practice was neither good nor poor or they did not know. Patient feedback from the National GP Patient Survey, based on 125 responses, showed that patient outcomes in relation to the quality statements equity in access, kindness, compassion and dignity and treating people as individuals were below local and national averages. The practice had undertaken their own survey, of which there were 1000 responses, and patient satisfaction outcomes were more in line with local and national averages. However, access remained an outlier. Leaders were aware of the challenges to patient access and had acted to improve it. The practice was about to implement a total triage system from October 2024. At the time of our assessment there was no Patient Participation Group (PPG) as previous members had stepped down from the role. However, we saw evidence that the practice was actively promoting the PPG to encourage patients to join through their website and quarterly patient newsletters.