The Dunstan Partnership

Updated 9 February 2024

Date of assessment: 7 March 2024. The Dunstan Partnership is an NHS GP Practice which provides primary care services to patients in Bolton, Greater Manchester. We carried out an announced assessment of one quality statement, equity in access, under the responsive key question. We found the practice had organised services to meet patients’ needs, particularly those who were most likely to have difficulty accessing care. The practice sought out and used feedback and other data and information to monitor and improve access. We carried out the assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are trying to meet people’s demands for access and to better understand the experiences of people who use services and providers. We recognise the work that GP practices have been engaged in to continue to provide safe, quality care to the people they serve. We know staff are carrying this out whilst the demand for general practice remains exceptionally high, with more appointments than ever being provided. However, in this challenging context, access to general practice remains a concern for people. Our strategy makes a commitment to deliver regulation driven by people’s needs and experiences of care. The assessment of the quality statement equity of access includes looking at what practices are doing innovatively to improve patient access to primary care and sharing this information to drive improvement. Overall, the practice is rated as good and the key question responsive continues to be rated as providing a good service.

Updated 9 February 2024

People were positive about the quality of their care and treatment. Recent survey results, including from the National GP Patient Survey and the NHS Friends and Family Test, showed people were satisfied with services. There was an active patient participation group (PPG) who represented the views of people using the service. Representatives from the PPG described how managers made positive changes because of feedback, such as having a new telephone system installed which allowed staff to monitor live demand and allocate resources during busy periods. In the 2023 National GP patient Survey, the practice’s data demonstrated that patient satisfaction was good overall. 59% responded that they were satisfied with their GP practice appointment times, 58% were happy at how easy it was to get through to someone on the telephone, 56% were satisfied with the overall experience of making an appointment and 73% were satisfied with the appointment they were offered. The data for these indicators also highlighted that the performance achieved by the practice was usually higher than both the national and local averages.