The Firs Medical Centre

What CQC reported

The service is performing well and meeting our expectations.

People’s experience

The national GP patient survey carried out from January to March 2024 had 90 responses. This found 85% of patients stated the healthcare professional was good at listening to them, and 95% of patients stated they were involved as much as they wanted to be in decisions about their care and treatment. In addition, 95% of patients had confidence and trust in the health care professional they saw or spoke to. 76% of patient had a fairly to very good experience of contacting the practice, 76% found the reception staff fairly to very helpful and 77% found contact through the website fairly to very easy. Ninety percent of patients know what the next step would be after contacting the practice, this increased to 95% within two days. However, 48% of patients found it fairly easy to very easy to contact the practice by phone.

The practice submitted their own unverified survey carried out in July 2024 where they received 278 responses. This found 84% of patients stated the healthcare professionals were fairly to very good at treating them with care and concern, and 87% of patients stated they were fairly to very good at listening to them. Sixty three percent described their experience of making an appointment from fairly to very good, 86% of patients found the receptionist fairly to very good.

We were provided with patient feedback from local Healthwatch they had gathered from social media and the provider website from July 2023 to April 2024, found 37 positive and 10 negative comments. The positive comments covered the booking system, the quality of the practice, and reception staff. The negative comments were regarding practice administration and medicines.