England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice at the Care Quality Commission has again rated Manchester GP Practice, Brooks Bar Medical Practice, as Inadequate and it remains in special measures.
Brooks Bar Medical Practice was first rated as Inadequate and placed into special measures in November 2015. At this most recent inspection in August this year CQC again rated them as Inadequate.
CQC are now taking action to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating the service. The service will be kept under review whilst this process is completed.
Alison Holbourn, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice at CQC said:
“We found that people registered with Brooks Bar Medical Practice still aren’t getting the high quality care which they should expect to receive from their GP practice. There were areas where we required the practice to improve following our last inspection but they have been unable to implement them.
“Key medical staff, who were instrumental in making improvements, had left, or were leaving the practice and this left overall responsibility with one main lead GP. Brooks Bar Medical Practice had been unable to recruit permanent GPs and clinical sessions were mostly covered by temporary locum staff. We found that safety, effectiveness, care and responsiveness had deteriorated because locum staff were not involved in governance and administration at the practice and communication was ineffective.
“Since our last inspection they 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.
CQC have told the practice there are areas where they must improve:
- The practice must ensure that all events of significance are reported and action is taken to ensure they are not repeated.
- There should be effective management of medicines.
- They should ensure that policies and procedures are embedded and appropriate actions are taken when things go wrong.
- Verbal and written complaints should be dealt with appropriately.
- The privacy of patients should be protected at all times, specifically in the reception area.
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.
Journalists wishing to speak to the press office outside of office hours can find out how to contact the team here. Please note: the press office is unable to advise members of the public on health or social care matters. For general enquiries, please call 03000 61 61 61.