England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has placed a St Lukes Surgery, Hedge End in special measures following a deterioration in the quality of its services.
St Lukes Surgery, in Hedge End , Southampton had been previously been rated Good during an inspection in November 2014.
During the latest inspection in February 2018, which was brought forward due to concerns, inspectors found that there was a significant decline in standards. The practice is now rated Inadequate overall and has been placed into special measures. St Lukes Surgery is rated as Inadequate for being safe, effective, responsive to people’s needs and well led and Good for caring.
The full report of the inspection has been published on our website.
CQC had found there was no longer a registered manager at St Luke’s Surgery and there appeared a general decline in leadership within the practice.
There was a lack of clear leadership to deliver the practice’s vision and strategy. Staff turnover had resulted in a number of management and clinical vacancies. This resulted in a gap in skills mix for monitoring of long term conditions such as asthma
A few days before our inspection the practice had an information security breach that was publicised on their website.
The practice did not have clear systems to mitigate or manage risk.
Not all staff had a record of having completed safeguarding training
Patients found it difficult to use the appointment system and reported that they were not able to access care when they needed it. There was limited evidence to demonstrate how the practice was responding to concerns raised by patients around accessing the service.
Ruth Rankine, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice for the South of England, said:
“I find it concerning that the high quality, consistent good care we found at our first inspection has diminished to such as degree. While it is good to see that staff are still providing a caring service there needs to be an overall improvement within the practice for the sake of its patients. As a result of these concerns I have recommended the practice will benefit from being placed into special measures, so the practice can receive 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. I am hopeful that the practice will do what is required for the sake of their patients but if we find that the service remains inadequate, we will consider taking further enforcement action even if that leads to cancelling its registration.”
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I find it concerning that the high quality, consistent good care we found at our first inspection has diminished to such as degree
Ruth Rankine, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice