CQC places Trent Valley Surgery into Special Measures

England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has placed a Lincolnshire GP practice into special measures following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission.

The Care Quality Commission has found the quality of care at Trent Valley Surgery in Lincolnshire, to be Inadequate following an inspection carried out in June 2015. A full report of the inspection has been published today.

The Trent Valley Surgery is a part-dispensing rural GP surgery in Saxilby. There are two GPs, a nurse practitioner, a nurse and a healthcare assistant who provide primary care services to 3,900 patients in the Saxilby, Torksey, Sturton-by-Stow, Skellingthorpe and surrounding villages.

Under CQC’s new programme of inspections, all of England’s GP practices are being given a rating according to whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led.

The practice had a vision to deliver high quality care and promote good outcomes for patients, which was shared by all of the staff we spoke with. However we did not see any evidence that the practice had any strategy for the future and to ensure as far as was possible that the service continued to operate.

The report highlights a number of areas where improvements must be made including:

• The surgery should ensure all clinical staff have appropriate professional indemnity.
• Ensure that incidents, near misses and complaints are recorded correctly, investigated and any learning cascaded to staff.
• There must be suitable equipment and plans in place to enable staff to deal with medical emergencies and foreseeable events that prevented the practice functioning normally.
• The surgery must introduce an appropriate system to ensure medicines are dispensed safely.
• Ensure the provider CQC registration is brought up to date.
• Patient records stored in paper format should be stored securely so as to prevent unauthorised access and to mitigate the risks associated with events such as fire.

CQC will inspect the practice again to consider whether sufficient improvements have been made and support the practice while it addresses the issues identified by the inspection.

Janet Williamson, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice and Dentistry in CQC’s Central region said:

“It is important that the people who are registered with Trent Valley Surgery  can rely on getting the high quality care which everyone is entitled to receive from their GP.

“The practice did not have processes in place to prioritise safety, identify risks and improve patient safety. For example, reported incidents and national patient safety alerts, as well as comments and complaints received from patients.”

“We know that Trent Valley Surgery has acknowledged the areas where action must be taken. We have found significant areas of concern, which is why we are placing the practice into special measures - so opening the way to support from NHS England among others.

“We will continue to monitor this practice and we will inspect again in six months to check whether improvements have been made. I am hopeful that the practice will do what is required for the sake of its patients, but if we find that the service remains inadequate, we will consider taking further action.”

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