West London GP practice rated as Inadequate

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated the Somerset Medical Centre in Ealing, West London, as Inadequate and has placed the provider into special measures following an inspection in July 2015.

Placement into special measures means that the provider must now make necessary improvements or face action that could result in closure.

Under CQC’s programme of inspections, all primary medical services in England are being given a rating according to whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led.

The full report from the Somerset Medical Centre inspection has been published on this website.

Somerset Medical Centre provides primary medical services to around 2,200 patients within the Southall area of Ealing, including a high proportion of people with refugee status.

CQC inspectors found that inadequate systems were in place for incident reporting, safeguarding of patients and medicines management, posing significant risks for patients. Minor incidents involving rude or demanding patients were reported as significant events whilst serious incidents including a vaccine fridge failure had not been reported.

The practice had no clear leadership structure, insufficient leadership capacity and limited formal governance arrangements.

National patient survey data showed that the practice scored below average regarding patient access to appointments and a preferred GP.

However, the majority of patients said that they felt the practice offered a good service and that staff were efficient, helpful and caring and treated them with dignity and respect.

Michele Golden, CQC Head of General Practice Inspection for London said:

“When we are faced with a provider that is experiencing difficulties in providing adequate care for patients, our first instinct is to work with them to ensure that patient care improves.

“We are confident that the Somerset Medical Centre will take any necessary action to address the concerns we identified during our most recent inspection.

“In particular, the provider must ensure robust incident reporting and safeguarding procedures are in place, and that appropriate action is taken and opportunities to share learning are optimised.

“Clinical staff with the appropriate skills to meet the patient needs and provide adequate clinical leadership must be employed.

“We will re-inspect within six months to check whether sufficient improvements have been made. If sufficient improvements have not been made and there remains a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take further action which may include closure.”

Ends

For further information please contact Yetunde Akintewe, CQC Regional Engagement Manager, on 07471 020 659. For media enquiries, journalists wishing to speak to the press office outside of office hours can find out how to contact the team here. For general enquiries, please call 03000 61 61 61.