We found that Spa Medical Centre was safe, effective, caring, well led, and responsive but we identified some areas where the practice may wish to consider making improvements. The practice was sensitive and responsive to the cultural needs of the population and employed a full time interpreter to address barriers to communication.
Most of the staff at the practice were long serving and demonstrated a commitment to meeting the needs of the practice population. Staff demonstrated a caring attitude and reported feeling part of a team and supported by management.
During our inspection we spoke with eight patients. They expressed satisfaction with the service and told us that they experienced good care from doctors and nurses and that the reception staff were polite, helpful and respectful. Patients described difficulties in obtaining appointments with a GP of their choice but clarified that they were always able to get an appointment with a doctor if necessary.
The practice had systems and processes in place for reviewing the effectiveness of procedures, for example, clinical audit and significant event analysis (SEA), however, many of these were not well recorded and complete. This may have presented difficulty for the practice in revisiting and reviewing actions to determine their effectiveness in improving care. This is an area where the practice may wish to make improvements.
The practice offered an out of hours service via a dedicated number which enabled urgent health concerns to be dealt with appropriately.
We found that the practice had addressed the needs of the population groups it served.