England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has rated Colby Medical Centre Ltd, based at The Bluebell Centre, in Liverpool as Inadequate, and placed the practice into special measures following an inspection by the CQC in September.
Under CQC’s programme of inspections, all of England’s GP practices are given a rating in five key questions: safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. The practice was rated as Inadequate for safe, and well-led, Requires Improvement for effective, and Good for caring, and responsive.
Professor Steve Field, Chief Inspector of General Practice said:
“We found that patients registered with Colby Medical Centre Ltd are not getting the high quality care which everyone should expect to receive from their GP.
“Although we found pockets of good care at this practice, the quality of care was inconsistent and the practice has not improved in all of the areas we told them to do so in 2016. For example, the system to manage hospital correspondence wasn’t effective or safe and was putting vulnerable patients at risk.
“We have told the practice where they must improve and are placing them into special measures to ensure action will be taken to improve the quality of care for patients.”
Read the full report of this inspection.
Some of the areas where CQC have told the practice they must improve:
- Establish effective systems to make sure safe, good standards of care are upheld.
- Ensure safe treatment is provided in relation to the monitoring of emergency drugs, patients on high risk drugs, and the communication and management of correspondence with patients.
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.
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.
ENDS
For further information please contact CQC Regional Engagement Officer Kerri James on 07464 92 9966 or kerri.james@cqc.org.uk.
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We have told the practice where they must improve and are placing them into special measures to ensure action will be taken to improve the quality of care for patients.
Professor Steve Field, Chief Inspector of General Practice