The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has taken action to urgently vary the conditions of the registration of Central Nottinghamshire Clinical Services to protect the safety and welfare of patients.
Following serious concerns identified during an unannounced inspection at Kirkby Community Primary Care Centre on 30 September, CQC took immediate action remove the location’s registration from the provider (Central Nottinghamshire Clinical Services) meaning they could no longer provide in-hours GP services at Kirkby Community Primary Care Centre with effect from 2 October 2015.
CQC took this action because it had serious concerns about the service and the risks it presented to patients. The service was failing to provide care which was safe, effective and well-led.
Before taking this action CQC liaised closely with NHS England and NHS Mansfield and Ashfield Clinical Commissioning Group to ensure that patients had continued access to GP services at this location.
An unannounced inspection was carried out at the service in May when concerns were found and the service received an overall rating of Inadequate and was placed into special measures. Warning notices were issued regarding safe care, treatment and governance.
A further inspection took place in September to follow up on the warning notices. Further concerns were identified in relation to a lack of clinical leadership and governance meaning patients’ health and wellbeing was placed at risk.
There were historic and widespread errors with the accuracy of clinically coding health records which had led to missed opportunities for health screening and the safe treatment of patients. A number of patients had received medicines without any monitoring of their health or in line with their treatment plan.
In addition, children had been put at risk of unsafe care due to the provider’s poor and increasingly worsening performance in administering childhood vaccinations.
A full report from the inspection has been published on the CQC website today.
Janet Williamson, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice and Dentistry in CQC’s Central region said:
“People are entitled to GP services which provide safe, effective, compassionate and high quality care. The failings we witnessed at Kirkby Community Primary Care Centre were completely unacceptable.
“The service was placing patients at significant risk of receiving inappropriate or unsafe care and made no attempt to address the issues we identified. For this reason we had no option but to cancel the registration.
“We are working closely with partner agencies to ensure that patients continue to receive the service they are entitled to. We are aware that an alternative provider is in the process of adding this service to its registration and GP services have continued at the site to ensure the continuation of patient care with minimal disruption.
“Where providers are not meeting required standards, we have a range of enforcement powers we can use to protect the health, safety and welfare of people who use this service and we will not stand for poor care.”
Ends
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Find out more
Read our reports about Kirkby Community Primary Care Centre (Central Nottinghamshire Clinical Services)