The Civic Medical Centre in Harrow, North West London, has been rated Inadequate overall after a Care Quality Commission inspection.
The practice, in Bethecar Road, which looks after 4320 people in the area, has now been recommended to be placed in special measures to help it improve following the inspection in January 2017.
Actions the practice must now take include:
- Ensuring that care and treatment are provided in a safe way.
- Ensure adequate arrangements are in place to respond effectively to emergencies.
- Ensure that staff regularly receive training and that the relevant recruitment checks are carries out.
The practice should also: review the number of GP sessions provided; consider ways to ensure that patient dignity is respected in the practice’s minor surgery room; and take action to improve the identification of patients with caring responsibilities so that appropriate support can be provided.
Ursula Gallagher, CQC's Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice said:
“We are placing Civic Medical Centre into special measures. Services placed in special measures will be inspected again within six months."
“The service will be kept under review and if needed could be escalated to urgent enforcement action. Where necessary, another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough improvement we will move to close the service by adopting our proposal to remove this location or cancel the provider’s registration. Special measures will give people who use the service the reassurance that the care they get should improve."
“We are pleased that patients we spoke to on the day and feedback from comment cards showed that patients found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.”
Patients registered with the practices being placed into special measures should be aware that a package of support is offered by NHS England and the Royal College of GPs to ensure that there are no immediate risks to patient safety at these GP practices whilst improvements are being made.
A full report of this inspection has been published on our website
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