The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has taken action to protect people by imposing conditions on The Limes Medical Centre, in Lye. The practice is now rated as inadequate and placed in special measures, following an inspection in June.
The Limes Medical Centre is a GP practice providing care for over 6,000 people in the Black Country and West Birmingham area.
The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns about people’s safety and the culture of the service. CQC also wanted to follow up on breaches of the regulations from the last inspection in March 2022.
As well as the service’s overall rating going down from requires improvement to inadequate, so have the ratings for being safe and well-led. Its ratings for being effective and responsive have dropped from good to requires improvement. On this occasion, CQC did not inspect how caring the service was, as it focused on the areas of concern, therefore, it remains rated as good from the previous inspection.
CQC have imposed conditions on the service to focus the provider’s attention on the areas where significant and immediate improvements are needed. The provider is required to develop an action plan outlining how they will make the improvements and when they will be achieved.
The service has also been placed in special measures, which means it will be kept under close review by CQC to keep people safe and it will continue to monitor to check sufficient improvements are being made. If CQC doesn’t see rapid and widespread improvements, further action will be taken in line with our enforcement powers.
Andy Brand, CQC deputy director of operations in the midlands, said:
“When we inspected The Limes Medical Centre, we were concerned to see a lack of strong leadership and a culture that didn’t encourage high-quality care. This was affecting people using the service as there weren’t effective processes in place to enable staff to provide safe care.
“We found systems to investigate concerns and share learning following incidents weren’t always followed. In some cases, when staff raised concerns, they didn’t believe they would be investigated and managed properly.
“We found people with long term conditions weren’t monitored properly and weren’t always offered an annual review to check their health and medication needs were being met. For example, there were 24 people whose results showed they had a new diagnosis of diabetes, but no one had informed them or arranged for monitoring of their condition.
“We saw the practice offered appointments by telephone, online, and in person, however, staff struggled to book appointments due to a lack of communication with GPs. As a result, people weren’t always able access appointments in a timely way.
“During the inspection, we found that the environment wasn’t well maintained and found health and safety and fire safety issues hadn’t been actioned. This included water temperatures not being safe, fire extinguishers not being maintained, and there was a lack of processes in place, as well as concerns around the security of the building.
"We have told leaders at The Limes Medical Centre where we expect to see rapid and widespread improvements and will continue to monitor them closely to keep people safe while this happens. We will return to check on their progress and won’t hesitate to take further action if people are not receiving the care they have a right to expect.”
Inspectors found:
- There were gaps in staff recruitment and training
- People’s needs were not always assessed, and care and treatment were not always delivered in line with current legislation, standards and evidence-based guidance
- There was limited oversight, induction and supervision for staff
- The culture did not effectively support high quality sustainable care and there was no evidence of systems and processes for learning, continuous improvement and innovation
- Staff morale was very low with a number of staff reporting there was a continued lack of communication.