- GP practice
Civic Medical Centre
Report from 5 March 2024 assessment
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Civic Medical Centre is a NHS GP practice which provides primary care services to approximately 9,500 patients in Wirral, Merseyside. We carried out an announced assessment of one quality statement, ‘Equity in access’ under the Responsive key question on 13 March 2024. The practice is rated as good overall and the responsive key question continues to be rated as good. We carried out the assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are working to try 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 being provided than ever. However, 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. We found that the practice had organised services to meet patient’s needs, including those who were most likely to have difficulty accessing care. The practice used feedback from patients and other information to monitor access. The practice had taken action to improve access and this was reflected in the national GP patient survey data or in other sources of patient feedback.
People's experience of this service
The practice received higher than national average scores for patient satisfaction in the national GP patient survey 2023. This included patient experience of getting through to the practice by phone, satisfaction with appointment times, appointments offered and with their overall experience of making an appointment. Patient satisfaction with their experience of the practice overall was also higher at 88% compared to the national average of 71%. The provider reviewed and responded to feedback and made improvements to the service in response. Patient feedback on the NHS website was positive with 5 reviews posted over the past 12 months 4 of which rated the practice as five out of five stars. The feedback also included positive comments about the service including the ease of access to appointments and responsiveness of the service. The provider identified patients whose circumstances could make them vulnerable or could prevent them experiencing equal access to services. They then arranged services to promote equality in access.