England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice at the CQC has again rated Manchester GP Practice, Droylsden Road Family Practice, as Inadequate and it remains in special measures.
Droylsen Road Family Practice was first rated as Inadequate and placed into special measures in March 2016. At this most recent inspection in October last year, CQC again found the quality of care they were providing as Inadequate.
In November last year CQC suspended Droylsden Road Family Practice’s registration for three months as people were at risk of harm if they continued with their current systems.
Alison Holbourn, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice at CQC said:
“We found that people registered with Droylsden Road Family Practice were receiving care that fell a long way short of the safe, high quality care which everyone should expect to receive from their GP practice.
“There were many areas where we had asked this service to improve when we first rated them as inadequate in March last year. Unfortunately, when we visited again in November last year, although there had been some improvements made, we were worried about patient safety and immediately suspended the Practice's registration as a provider.
“We found a practice that was not providing a safe service. We found that some patients had not received results from tests that had been undertaken several weeks previously, and referrals that were not being processed in a timely manner after consultation. We also found worrying inconsistencies in the quality of documentation, for example a significant long term condition had not been documented in the record of one patient.”
“We also found unsafe practice such as administrative staff being given permission to issue repeat prescriptions even if the review dates were overdue.
“Since our last inspection Droylsden Road Family Practice had introduced a number of protocols to manage the practice. However, we found that these were not embedded well enough and were not consistently followed to sufficiently reduce the risks that had been previously identified.”
A full report of this inspection has been published.
Some of the areas where the CQC have told the practice they must improve include:
- The provider must ensure all patients’ referrals are actioned within a timely manner.
- The provider must develop a process to ensure that all clinicians respond in a timely manner to patients changing needs, including clinical reviews on hospital admissions, hospital discharges and patients with a long term condition.
- The provider must introduce a procedure to ensure all patients test results are followed up and actioned in a timely manner and in a consistent and timely way to ensure patient safety.
- The provider must ensure patient’s consultations notes are up to date, with consultation notes containing adequate patient information to be clear and precise relevant medical information to protect the patient from future risk of harm.
- The provider must follow the prescribing policy and procedure for reviewing and re-authorising repeat medication in a safe and timely manner.
If immediate improvements are not made, CQC will look to take further enforcement action which can include removing this provider’s registration, closing the practice.
Patients registered with the practices in 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 Communications Officer Kerri James on 07464 92 9966 or kerri.james@cqc.org.uk.
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