The Medical Centre Crabbs Cross

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

Staff treated patients with kindness, dignity, and respect. They ensured patients received a warm welcome when they arrived at the practice. Appointments were not rushed so patients had time to discuss their options and make informed choices and decisions.

This service scored 70 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Staff treated patients with kindness. Patients felt staff listened to them and communicated with them in a way they could understand. They said they had their privacy and dignity respected during appointments.

Leaders and staff knew many of their patients well. As this was a small practice, they had been able to build relationships based on trust. Staff gave examples of how they treated patients with kindness and compassion and supported patients to achieve everything they wanted from their appointments.

Partners told us staff treated patients with kindness and respect when they had attended appointments together. Staff always put the needs of each patient first.

Patients received a friendly greeting from reception staff when they arrived at the practice. When speaking to patients on the phone staff were kind and respectful. They gave clear information and tried where possible to offer appointments at a time which suited the patient.

Staff treated people as individuals. They listened to patients and spent time understanding their concerns about their health.

Leaders and staff gave examples of how they treated patients as individuals. This included tailoring advice to someone’s specific health need and ensuring it was in a format they could use and understand.

We observed staff treating patients as individuals when they came into reception and during telephone conversations.

Leaders had processes in place to ensure patients individual needs could be met. This included offering same day appointments for children and those patients with complex needs. They offered longer appointment slots where needed and for patients new to the practice so they could ensure they had time to take a full patient history.

Patients felt they could discuss their treatment options with staff and were confident they would be listened to.

Leaders and staff gave guidance to patients about their health and lifestyle choices but accepted not all patients were open to accepting the advice given. In these cases, they continued to have conversations with patients to ensure they understood the risks of some choices they were making. For example, some patients who were pre diabetic did not always accept the advice of staff about diet or accept the offer of a referral to groups where they could access additional support.

Leaders ensured staff had training, so they were aware patients needed to feel in control of their treatment. They gave patients information and offered guidance, so their decisions were well informed.

Patients could access emergency appointments on the day they needed them. They found reception staff worked to accommodate their individual needs and gave this as one of the reasons why they liked the practice and would not move to another one.

Staff were alert to people’s needs and took time to observe, communicate and engage people in discussions about their immediate needs. Staff found out how to respond in the most appropriate way to respect people's wishes.

We observed reception staff responding promptly to phone calls and offering patients the support needed to access the practice.

Leaders and staff said this was a small and busy practice and they did not always have time to reflect on the work they were doing or complete tasks in the way they would like to as patient care came first.

Leaders did not have a policy in place for workforce wellbeing, so this was not always considered a priority. They had a staff Equality and Diversity policy which stated race equality would be audited annually. We did not see evidence of this audit being completed. Leaders had conducted a staff survey where some staff had disagreed or strongly disagreed with some positive statements about working for the practice. There was no evidence of how this survey was analysed and used to address the concerns raised by staff.