Bradford district's GP surgeries ranked in NHS patient survey

A total of 97 per cent of patients at each of Addingham Surgery, Haigh Hall Medical Practice and The Springfield Surgery said that their overall experience was good, meaning that all three sites took the number one spot in the Bradford district.

The survey, carried out each year for the NHS, asks patients their views of their registered practices across a range of criteria, including ease of making an appointment, their practice’s website, the helpfulness of receptionists and whether their needs were met.

In second place in the Bradford district were Baildon Medical Practice and The Rockwell and Wrose with 95 per cent each of patients saying their overall experience was good.

Joint third were Saltaire Medical Practice, Townhead Surgery, Bingley Medical Practice and Eccleshill Medical Surgery, which all received a 92 per cent overall good rating.

Next, all with a 90 per cent rating, were Ilkley & Wharfedale Medical, Grange Park Surgery, Moorside Surgery and Haworth Medical Practice.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the Bradford district rankings, Kensington Partnership came last in the statistics, with 51 per cent of patients saying their overall experience was good.

The partnership has four sites; Kensington Street Health Centre, Lower Grange Medical Centre, Mughal Medical Centre and Woodroyd Medical Centre.

Dr Alistair Bavington, senior partner at Kensington Partnership, said: “We recognise the challenges we face across Kensington Partnership when it comes to delivering GP services to a diverse population with a broad range of healthcare needs.

“Our GP practice staffs are working very hard to improve access to primary care services, including GP appointments.

“While these survey results are disappointing, we are confident that the work we are doing will see an improvement in satisfaction with services in the future.

“We have invested in a new telephone system to help improve access to practices by phone and to help support the greater use of telephone consultations. We are also further developing online services such as video and e-consultations to increase choice and improve how patients can access GP appointments.

“We also offer an extended access service to local people giving them the ability to access evening and weekend appointments.

“This includes additional GP and nurse appointments as well as additional services such as community pharmacists.

“We are supporting our reception teams, who have recently merged from four practices into one partnership, with new and additional customer services training and we have plans in place to work more closely with our patient participation groups and local patient experience leads to build on areas where we need to improve as well as those where we do well, such as involving patients in decisions about their care and treatment and supporting them to manage their long term conditions.”

Joint second from bottom were Barkerend HC – EL Eliwi, based on Barkerend Road, Bradford, and North Street Medical Practice, Keighley, with 56 per cent apiece.

Parklands Medical Practice was third bottom with 62 per cent overall good rating.

The results are part of the GP Patient Survey, an independent survey run by Ipsos MORI on behalf of NHS England.

It is the largest survey of its kind as is used by the NHS as a key source of insight.

The average across the NHS Bradford District and Craven Clinical Commissioning Group, which covers the whole of the Bradford district, was that 79 per cent thought their overall experience was good.

This was three per cent below the national CCG average, which was 82.

Dr David Tatham, a local GP and a strategic clinical director at NHS Bradford District and Craven Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said: “First of all, on behalf of the CCG, I’d like to thank the public for their tremendous support through these unprecedented times.

"In addition, I also want to thank all of the staffs working in general practice who continue to ensure their patients receive the highest quality of care they deserve.

“The pandemic has been extremely challenging for everyone but through their hard work our practices have managed to remain effective throughout and have continued to deliver safe and effective services.

"We always welcome the results of surveys like this as it highlights where improvements can be made but also the areas of outstanding practice and gives the opportunity for practices to hear the views of their patients.

"Overall we are pleased with these results which show how highly people rate services at their local GP practice as well as how those services are changing.

“Locally, awareness of online services such as booking appointments and ordering repeat prescription is higher than the national average and the CCG also scored better than average for people using the online services within the last 12 months.

“All practices in Bradford district and Craven have fully implemented online electronic consultations, which mean patients have more choice in how they access care and advice, including telephone consultations.

“We are also introducing new roles into practices such as social prescribers; physiotherapists; paramedics; and community pharmacists as part of primary care networks, which will improve peoples’ access to care by offering an alternative to seeing a GP or nurse.”

Go to gp-patient.co.uk to find out your GP surgery's ratings in the survey.