- GP practice
Lakeside Surgery Also known as Alliance Primary Care Limited
Report from 12 February 2024 assessment
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Lakeside Surgery is an NHS GP practice which provides primary care services to patients in the Barnsley area of South Yorkshire. Lakeside Surgery is operated by Alliance Primary Care Ltd, who took over the GP contract and operating of primary care services in April 2019. We carried out an announced assessment of one quality statement, equity of access, under the key question Responsive at Lakeside Surgery on the 21 February 2024. We carried out the assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are working to try to meet peoples 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, 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. 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. Overall, the practice is rated as good and the key question responsive continues to be rated as providing a good service. We found that since taking over the practice in 2019, the Alliance had sought to understand the pressures and challenges in respect of access for patients and were continuing to develop and implement plans to improve. The practice organised services to meet patients’ needs, particularly those who were most likely to have difficulty accessing care. The practice sought out and used feedback and other data/information to monitor and improve access.
People's experience of this service
In the 2023 National GP Patient Survey, the practice’s data demonstrated the percentage of respondents who responded positively to how easy it was to get through to the practice on the phone, those who were very satisfied or fairly satisfied with their GP practice appointment times, those who were satisfied with the appointment (or appointments) they were offered, and those who responded positively to the overall experience of making an appointment showed no statistical variation to the England average. However, the practice acknowledged they would like to improve performance and were implementing plans to do so. Results from the NHS Friends and Family Test (FFT) were reviewed and found to be positive. For example, in December 2023, 29 people responded to the survey and 93% were positive about the practice, in November 2023, 12 people responded and 92% were positive about the practice. This is higher than the England average of 91%. Where any aspects of survey results were lower than expected the practice analysed these and made changes to improve. The practice had reviewed and responded to the feedback and continues to make improvements. We recognise the pressure that practices are currently working under, and the efforts staff are making to maintain levels of access for their patients. At the same time, our strategy makes a commitment to deliver regulation driven by people’s needs and experiences of care. We were told and shown evidence to demonstrate that the practice sought and acted on feedback relating to access.