CQC places Birstall Medical Centre into Special Measures

England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has placed a Leicestershire GP practice into special measures following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission.

The Care Quality Commission has found the quality of care at Birstall Medical Centre in Leicester, Leicestershire, to be Inadequate following an inspection carried out in May 2015. A full report of the inspection has been published today: www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-559828966.

Birstall Medical Centre provides primary medical services to approximately 7,800 patients from two sites, Birstall Medical Centre and Border Drive Surgery, Leicester.

Under CQC’s new programme of inspections, all of England’s GP practices are being given a rating according to whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led.

Inspectors found the practice' inadequate' for providing safe, caring, responsive and well-led services. It was also inadequate for providing services for Older people, People with long-term conditions; Families, children and young people; Working age people(including those recently retired and students)

The report highlights a number of areas where improvements must be made including:

• The practice must ensure there is a robust system in place to ensure that the information and documentation required has been obtained before people start working at the practice to ensure they are suitable to work with patients.
• They must put systems in place to ensure medications and GP’s bags are checked to ensure that drugs are safe and are within the manufacturers expiry dates.
• Ensure there are formal governance arrangements in place including systems for assessing and monitoring risks and the quality of the service provision.
• Staff must have appropriate policies and guidance to carry out their roles in a safe and effective manner which are reflective of the requirements of the practice.
• The practice must follow the complaint policy and that apologies are given where necessary.
• Ensure that full investigations of serious incidents are undertaken and actions and lessons learned are taken to prevent re-occurrence.
• These must be a process in place for incoming mail that is robust and clinically safe.
• Ensure notifications to the Commission and NHS England are made.
• Undertake an assessment of the risk from Legionella.

The provider must send CQC a report that says what action they are going to take to meet these requirements.

Janet Williamson, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice and Dentistry in CQC’s Central region said:

“It is important that the people who are registered with Birstall Medical Centre can rely on getting the high quality care which everyone is entitled to receive from their GP.

"Although the patients we met told us they were treated with dignity and respect, we also found that care and treatment was not always delivered in line with best practice.

“We know that Birstall Medical Centre has acknowledged the areas where action must be taken. We have found significant areas of concern, which is why we are placing the practice into special measures - so opening the way to support from NHS England among others.

“We will continue to monitor this practice and we will inspect again in six months to check whether improvements have been made. I am hopeful that the practice will do what is required for the sake of its patients, but if we find that the service remains inadequate, we will consider taking further action.”

Ends

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