England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has rated a Manchester GP surgery as Inadequate and placed the practice into special measures following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
A specialist team of inspectors rated the Brooks Bar Medical Centre as Inadequate for providing services that were safe, responsive to people’s needs and well-led, Requires Improvement for providing effective services, and Good for caring services.
Under CQC’s new programme of inspections, all of England’s GP practices are being inspected and given a rating. Overall, Brooks Bar Medical Centre has been rated as Inadequate and placed in special measures. The service was also rated Inadequate for the services provided to all population groups.
The practice was inspected in November 2015 by an inspection team which included a GP and a practice manager as specialist advisors, and an expert by experience.
People told inspectors that the practice treated them with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in decisions about their care and treatment. However, inspectors found that whilst the practice had systems in place to report and record incidents, investigations were not thorough enough and lessons learned were not communicated widely. Staff did not have access to appropriate training and the practice did not manage risks to patients, in such areas as medicine management, recruitment and medical emergencies, well enough.
A full report of this inspection has been published on our website.
Sue McMillan, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice for the North of England, said:
“It is important that the people who are registered at Brooks Bar Medical Centre can rely on getting the high quality care which everyone is entitled to receive from their GP.
“Systems need to be strengthened to ensure that incidents are investigated thoroughly and that learning takes place which is shared widely throughout the staff at the practice. Action must also be taken to address the wider concerns we identified so that patients receive safe, high-quality primary care.
“I do not believe that the practice is likely to resolve its challenges without external support. This is why we are placing the practice into special measures.
“After a period of six months we will inspect again to check whether sufficient improvements have been made. If we find that the service provided by this practice remains inadequate, we will consider taking steps to cancel its registration with CQC.”
Patients registered with the practices being placed into special measures should be aware that the package of support being offered by NHS England and the Royal College of GPs will ensure that there are no immediate risks to patient safety at these GP practices whilst improvements are being made.
Ends
For further information please contact CQC Regional Communications Officer Mark Humphreys on 0191 233 3519 or 07881656012.
Journalists wishing to speak to the press office outside of office hours can find out how to contact the team here.
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Find out more
Read our reports about Brooks Bar Medical Centre.