England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has rated Daneshouse Medical Centre, in Burnley, Lancashire as Inadequate, and placed the practice into special measures following an inspection by the CQC in April.
Under CQC’s programme of inspections, all of England’s GP practices are given a rating in five key areas: safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. The practice was rated as Inadequate for safe, effective, responsive and well-led, and Requires Improvement for caring.
Alison Holbourn, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice at CQC, said:
“We found that people registered with Daneshouse Medical Centre are not getting the high quality care which everyone should expect to receive from their GP."
“Comprehensive processes were not in place to keep patients safe, or the practice well run."
“It was worrying that positive outcomes for patients were lower than both the local and national averages, and we saw little evidence that the practice was doing anything to improve them. This is unacceptable. People are entitled as a very minimum to receive effective care."
“We have told the practice where they must improve and we are placing them into special measures to ensure that action will be taken to improve the quality of care for patients.”
A full report of this inspection has been published on our website.
Some of the areas where CQC have told the practice they must improve:
- They must analyse significant events and patient complaints to identify themes and take action to try and ensure they don’t happen again.
- They must improve governance arrangements to monitor and review the receipt and use of prescription pads
- The practice must take action to mitigate any risks to patients and ensure their care and treatment is provided in a safe way.
- Establish an accessible system for patients and carers to make complaints, and ensure those complaints are recorded and monitored for improvement processes.
The service will be kept under review and if needed could be escalated to urgent enforcement action. Where necessary, another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough improvement we will move to close the service by adopting our proposal to remove this location or cancel the provider’s registration.
Patients registered with the practices being placed into special measures should be aware that a package of support is offered by NHS England and the Royal College of GPs to ensure that there are no immediate risks to patient safety at these GP practices whilst improvements are being made.
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Comprehensive processes were not in place to keep patients safe
Alison Holbourn, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice at CQC,