England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has placed a Birmingham practice into special measures following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission.
The Care Quality Commission has found the quality of care at Dr Abid Hussain’s practice in Birmingham, West Midlands, to be Inadequate following an inspection carried out in May 2015. A full report of the inspection has been published today.
Dr Abid Hussain provides primary medical care to 10000 people approximately. Dr Abid Hussain’s practice is known locally as Pearl Medical Centre. It is located in Ward End, Birmingham which is an area of high deprivation and associated health needs.
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 did not have effective arrangements in place to ensure the delivery of safe patient care or systems to protect the health and safety of patients, staff and visitors to the practice.
The report highlights a number of areas where improvements must be made including:
- Establish effective systems to assess, monitor and mitigate risks relating to the health, safety and welfare of patients, staff and visitors to the practice.
- Develop systems to seek feedback from staff and patients at the practice and ensure this feedback is recorded and acted upon.
- Implement a robust complaints policy and procedure that is accessible and understood by all patients and demonstrates a commitment to responding to and resolving all complaints where possible. Where any trends are identified, actions are taken to improve the quality of care for patients.
- Ensure that all staff receive appropriate training, professional development and supervision appropriate to their role.
- Ensure that all non clinical staff who administers vaccines uses Patient Specific Directions that have been produced by the prescriber.
- Ensure that non-clinical staff receive appropriate training, professional development and supervision in the administration of vaccines.
- Review the availability of emergency medicines so that emergencies are managed effectively.
CQC will inspect the practice again to consider whether sufficient improvements have been made and support the practice while it addresses the issues identified by the inspection.
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 Dr Abid Hussain’s practice can rely on getting the high quality care which everyone is entitled to receive from their GP.
“Although, we saw that the practice had a vision to deliver the highest standards of care to every patient and to ensure that the patient was the priority for the service at all times. The practice was unable to provide any evidence that they had actively sought the views of patients over the last year.”
“We know that Dr Abid Hussain’s practice 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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Find out more
Read our reports on Dr Abid Hussain.