The Care Quality Commission
  • Doctor
  • GP practice

Hamdon Medical Centre

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Matts Lane, Stoke-sub-hamdon, TA14 6QE (01935) 822236

Provided and run by:
Symphony Healthcare Services Limited

Important: The provider of this service changed. See old profile

All Inspections

During an assessment under our new approach

We carried out an announced assessment of one quality statement, equity of access, under the key question Responsive at Hamdon Medical Centre on the 20 February 2024. Overall, the practice is rated as good. Following this assessment, the key question of responsive remains rated as good. The assessment was carried out to understand people’s experiences in accessing GP services. We know demand for GP appointments remains exceptionally high with more appointments being requested than ever. Despite this increase in demand, we recognise the work that GP practices have been engaged in, through their staff, in ensuring that they provide safe, quality care to the people that use their services. We recognise that due to the increase in demand access to services remains a concern for the public. We carried out the assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are working to try to meet increased demand for access and to better understand the experiences of people who use services. 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.

31 January 2019

During a routine inspection

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Hamdon Medical Centre on 31 January 2019 as part of our inspection programme. Hamdon Medical Centre became part of Symphony Healthcare Services in May 2018. This was its first inspection under the new provider.

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

  • what we found when we inspected
  • 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 good overall and good for all population groups.

We found that:

  • The practice had systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.
  • The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care they provided. They ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
  • Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
  • There was a focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.
  • There were systems in place for reviews of patients and their medicines.
  • There was a programme of annual reviews of patients with long term conditions, mental health needs and dementia, although improved regarding the previous year’s information they were still slightly below the expected local and national targets in some areas. The practice shared information they were on target to complete the programme before the end of the financial year.
  • Staff encouraged and supported patients to be involved in monitoring and managing their own health, for example through the involvement of health coaches and social prescribing schemes.
  • The patient participation group was newly reformed and was beginning to have a positive effect to keep patients informed and involved in the practice and the services it provides.
  • There was an active programme of clinical audit that had a positive impact upon the outcomes for patient care, learning was shared across the provider organisation.
  • The new providers policies and procedures and system of governance which had been implemented and embedded showed there was an effective system of monitoring at the local level and at provider level.

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

  • Continue with addressing the gaps in maintaining meeting the patients’ needs including patients with long term conditions, mental health and dementia.
  • Improve the identification of carers to enable this group of patients to access the care and support they need.

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

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice