Abbey Meads Village Centre (a GP practice ), in Elstree Way, Swindon is being placed into special measures following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission in June 2019.
Inspectors rated the service as Inadequate for being safe, effective, well-led and responsive to people’s needs and rated Good for being caring. The overall rating was Inadequate.
The full inspection report can be found at www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-6487604560
Following the inspection, CQC applied urgent conditions to Abbey Meads Village Centre and the other four services ran by the provider, Better Health Partnership - Moredon Medical Centre, Taw Hill Surgery, Eldene Surgery and Phoenix (Toothill) Surgery). This was in relation to the significant issues relating to patient safety, the quality of service and leadership and governance.
Inspectors found the practice did not have clear systems in place to keep patients safe or managing medicines safely.
They were unable to show that staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to carry out their roles.
The practice was not always acting on accurate information to keep people safe or make improvements when things went wrong
Ruth Rankine, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice for the South of England, said:
“While it is good to see that staff are still providing a caring service at Abbey Meads Village Centre there needs to be an urgent overall improvement within the practice for the sake of its patients. Clearly there are areas which we found unsafe particularly around the management medicines.
“As a result of these concerns we have placed urgent conditions upon the provider Better Health Partnership a subsidiary of IMH Ltd for all of the services currently being run in Swindon. I have also recommended the practice to be placed into special measures, so the practice receives the support it needs to improve.
“We will continue to monitor progress and we will inspect again within six months to check whether sufficient improvements have been made. The practice needs to do what is required for the sake of their patients but if we find that the service remains inadequate, we will not hesitate to take further enforcement action even if that leads to cancelling its registration.”
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For further information please contact CQC Regional Engagement Manager John Scott on 077898 875 809 or, for media enquiries, call the press office on 020 7448 9401 during office hours.
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