- GP practice
Dr Geetha Ramachandran & Dr Prasanna Balakrishnan Also known as Hirsel Medical Centre
Report from 22 February 2024 assessment
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
We carried out an announced focused assessment of one quality statement, equity of access, under the key question ‘Responsive’ at Dr Geetha Ramachandran & Dr Prasanna Balakrishnan (also known as Hirsel Medical Centre) on the 29 February 2024. Following our assessment, the key question of responsive continues to be rated as good. We did not assess the other key questions of safe, effective, caring or well-led. The previous ratings of good for these 4 questions carry forward. The service is still rated as good overall. This assessment was a short, focused assessment, carried out remotely using video conferencing. This was part of our work to understand how practices are working to try to meet demand for access, and to understand the experiences of people who use services. We recognise the work that GP practices have been engaged in to continue to provide safe, quality care, at a time when demand for general practice remains exceptionally high. Our strategy makes a commitment to deliver regulation driven by people’s needs and experiences of care. These responsive assessments include looking at practice innovations to improve patient access to primary care and sharing this information to drive improvement. At this assessment, we found: The practice had performed in line with national ‘access’ averages on the latest GP National Patient Survey. The practice used performance data to target and improve access. The practice understood the needs of its local population and had developed services accordingly. The practice worked collaboratively within its primary care network to ensure additional types of appointments and extended hours were available.
People's experience of this service
We reviewed the practice's results in the 2023 national GP patient survey taken from 1 January to 31 March 2023. This found that results were in line with the national average, for patients’ response to how easy it was to get through to someone at their GP practice on the phone, those who were very satisfied or fairly satisfied with their GP practice appointment times, and those who responded positively to the overall experience of making an appointment. Patients had access to interpretation services where required. The practice aimed to tailor their communications to meet individual need, for instance text messaging or letter communications for the hard of hearing. The practice was accessible to patients with mobility needs. We found that leaders had responded to patient feedback and were making improvements. For instance, by monitoring telephone waiting times and calls abandoned data, and deploying staff flexibly to meet extra demand at busy times.