Pear Tree Surgery

Updated 19 January 2024

Pear Tree Surgery is located in Kingsbury. There is also a branch surgery in the nearby village of Hurley. Both practices have a dispensary and there is also a commercial pharmacy at the branch surgery.

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities: diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning, surgical procedures, maternity and midwifery services and treatment of disease, disorder, or injury.

The practice is situated within the Warwickshire North Integrated Care Board (ICB) and a member of the Warwickshire Rural Primary Care Network (PCN). It provides services to 10,350 patients under the terms of a general medical services (GMS) contract. This is a contract between general practices and NHS England for delivering services to the local community.

Information published by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the population group is 8 (8 out of 10). The higher the decile the less deprived the practice population is relative to others. According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 97.9% White, 0.9% Asian and 0.8% Mixed.

The provider is a partnership with four partner GPs (three male, one female), four salaried GPs (two male, two female), two practice nurses, two healthcare assistants and the dispensary staff. They are supported by a practice manager, deputy practice manager and administrative staff. It is a training practice for GP trainees and nursing staff.

The practice is open between 8am am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday at both sites. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments. The practice is open on Saturday morning at the Hurley Surgery providing prebooked appointments. When the practice is closed, patients are asked to contact NHS 111 for out-of-hours care.

Updated 19 January 2024

We carried out an announced assessment of Pear Tree Surgery on 27 November 2023.

This was a targeted review of responsive services. The practice was previously inspected in March 2019 and had previously been rated good overall and good in safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. Any previous ratings for the overall rating, safe, effective, caring, and well-led will be unchanged following this assessment.

Rating at this assessment:

Responsive – Requires improvement.

Why we carried out this review

We carried out this assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are working to try to meet demand 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 colleagues are doing this while demand for general practice remains exceptionally high, with more appointments being provided than ever. 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. These assessments of the responsive key question include looking at what practices are doing innovatively to improve patient access to primary care and sharing this information to drive improvement.

How we carried out the assessment

This assessment was carried out virtually, through an online meeting and review of documents. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.

This included:

• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A virtual meeting with the provider.

Our findings

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

• what we found when we carried out the assessment
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We have rated this practice as requires improvement for responsive services.

We found that:

• During the assessment process, the provider highlighted the efforts they were making to improve the responsiveness of the service for their patient population. These included a triage appointments system to meet increased demand for on the day care and treatment. The effect of these efforts had not yet been evaluated, therefore not yet reflected in patient feedback.
• Data from the national survey showed the practice performed below local and national average for all indicators related to access since the last inspection, and on a downward trend.
• The practice actively engaged with patients through their patient participation group and feedback was collected regularly from patients seen.
• Whilst telephone data was monitored, it had limitations which prevented analysis of call waiting times.
• Patients could access services online through the practice website and the NHS App.
• Complaints received were reviewed effectively and learning from complaints was shared and implemented by the whole practice team.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Continue to review and evaluate measures put in place to improve access to appointments and demonstrate how they are responding to feedback from patients on access.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Health Care