England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has placed a North East GP practice into special measures following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission in July.
The Care Quality Commission has found the quality of care at the Newcastle Medical Centre, in Eldon Square, Newcastle Upon Tyne, to be Inadequate. A full report of the inspection has been published on our website.
The Newcastle Medical Centre provides primary medical services to approximately 13,500 patients at their practice.
Inspectors rated the practice Good for being safe and caring, Requires Improvement for responsiveness, and Inadequate for being effective and well led, resulting in an overall Inadequate rating
Alison Holbourn, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice for the North, said:
“It is important that the people who are registered with the Newcastle Medical Centre can rely on getting the high quality care which everyone is entitled to receive from their GP."
“While we appreciate patients were treated with compassion, dignity and respect, we have also found some significant areas of concern, which is why we are placing the practice into special measures - so opening the way to further improvement, and to enable the Practice to receive 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 believe that the practice will do what is required for the sake of its patients and encourage them to make the additional improvements building on work to date.”
The report highlights a number of areas where improvements should be made including:
- The practice should monitor their outcomes against other similar services to improve effectiveness
- Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. However records of significant events did not consistently detail discussion, actions taken and learning to lead improvements.
- The practice should ensure that accurate notes are always maintained for each patient.
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For further information please contact CQC Regional Engagement Officer Kerri James by email kerri.james@cqc.org.uk or by phone on 07464 92 9966.
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