The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated both Graham Road Surgery and Horizon Health Centre inadequate and placed them in special measures to protect people, following inspections in May.
The inspections were carried out to follow up what actions were taken after breaches of regulation had been found at previous inspections.
Horizon Health Centre dropped from requires improvement to inadequate overall and also for being safe and well led. Caring and responsive dropped from good to requires improvement and effective remained as requires improvement.
The overall rating for Graham Road Surgery also dropped from requires improvement to inadequate as did the ratings for safe and well-led. The practice’s ratings for effective, caring and responsive remain rated as requires improvement.
CQC inspectors also issued warning notices to both practices to focus their attention on making significant changes to improve people’s safety, due to concerns found around governance and of person-centred care.
CQC has placed both practices into special measures, which means they will be kept under review and re-inspected to check on the progress of improvements.
Cath Campbell, CQC deputy director of operations in the south, said:
“When we inspected both Graham Road Surgery and Horizon Health Centre, we were disappointed to find that limited action had been taken to put in place the necessary improvements that were needed to address the breaches in regulations we had identified previously.
“This means the warning notices which we have previously given the practices remain in place.
“We found that there were backlogs of activity such as two-week referrals which meant people who were at risk of harm were not always receiving the treatment or care they required by an appropriate person in a timely way.
“People weren’t always receiving their prescribed medicines in line with national guidance. This is because the team were not always monitoring staff and what some non-medical prescribers were prescribing.
“In response, we’ll continue to monitor this service, including through further inspections, to make sure people are receiving the safe care they deserve, and won’t hesitate to take further action if needed.”
At both practices inspectors found:
- The practice couldn’t demonstrate that individual care records were managed appropriately
- Staff didn’t have access to relevant information to ensure safe care and treatment of people using the service
- People had not received required monitoring of their prescribed medicines in line with national guidance
- Safeguarding processes were not embedded in practice
- Systems to support infection prevention and control were not embedded
- There were no effective processes to identify learning from patient complaints to help drive improvements.