Bewick Crescent Surgery

Updated 8 February 2024

Bewick Crescent Surgery is an NHS GP practice which provides primary care services to patients in the Newton Aycliffe area of County Durham. We carried out an announced assessment of one quality statement, equity of access, under the key question Responsive at Bewick Crescent Surgery on the 27 February 2024. We carried out the assessment as part of our work to understand how practices were working to meet peoples demands for access and to 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. The responsive key question is also rated as good. The National GP Patient Survey indicated improvements were needed to patient satisfaction with accessing the service by telephone, appointment times and experience of making an appointment. Although the provider had made improvements and more recent patient feedback from other sources showed satisfaction had improved, the National GP Patient Survey, cannot be directly compared to other surveys undertaken. This is because the National GP Patient Survey adopts a sampling and weighting methodology to obtain a representative sample of patients. We found that the practice organised services to meet patients’ needs and sought and used feedback and other data/information to monitor and improve access.

Updated 8 February 2024

The National GP Patient Survey was below the national average for telephone access, appointment times and satisfaction with making an appointment. The practice was above the national average for satisfaction with the appointment offered. The practice had reviewed and responded to the feedback and was monitoring patient satisfaction with access through patient surveys and through their work with the Patient Participation Group (PPG). Patient feedback gathered by the practice was more positive, including feedback gathered after improvements, such as a new telephone system. However, this feedback cannot be directly compared to the National GP Patient Survey. CQC had feedback from 19 patients. Overall, comments were positive. Sixteen comments were positive and included information to indicate good access, 3 comments were negative and included information about difficulty accessing the service for appointments. 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. Although we saw the practice was attempting to improve access, this was not yet reflected in the National GP Patient Survey data.