Better GP care for patients in North Somerset
GPs are often the first point of contact for anyone who has concerns or questions about their health. While the NHS says you do not need to register with a GP surgery in the area you live, some GPs only accept patients within a certain catchment area. This means that it's vital your local surgery can provide high quality care.
When North Somerset residents raised concerns about Graham Road Surgery in Weston-super-Mare with us, we began working with the surgery to improve the standard of care for patients.
As part of our obligation to scrutinise services and in our role as a critical friend, we liaised with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the independent regulator of health and social care services, and shared with them the type of feedback we were receiving about the surgery. We also provided monthly updates to the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG - now the Integrated Care System, or ICS) who oversee healthcare across the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire area.
In August 2021, a Care Quality Commission inspection of Graham Road Surgery found issues around staffing and resources.The CQC and ICS are now supporting Graham Road, and improvements have already been made – for instance, the surgery has brought in additional receptionists, provided enhanced training, employed more nurse practitioners, and set up a new telephony system to make it easier for patients to seek care.
We enable local people to monitor the standard of provision, and we report and recommend how a service could be improved. These are our core functions, and we take this responsibility seriously.
We continue to gather and pass on patient feedback about Graham Road. Our Enter and View representatives last visited Graham Road in February 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Graham Road surgery has invited us to revisit and evaluate the service they provide in the autumn of 2022.
