Quality of care at GP practice in Thrapston '˜inadequate'

England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has placed The Meadows Surgery into special measures following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission in November 2015.

A full report of the inspection can be found here.

The Meadows Surgery provides primary medical services to about 5,430 patients throughout the Thrapston area.

Under the 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.

Inspectors found that the practice was inadequate for providing safe, effective services that were well led.

It was rated good for being caring and requires improvement for being responsive.

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

The practice must not register any new patients without the prior written agreement of the CQC.

The practice must ensure an appropriate system is in place for the safe use and management of medicines and prescriptions, including medical consumables.

Systems designed to assess the risk of and to prevent, detect and control the spread of infection must be fully implemented.

Key performance indicators must be met each month in respect of chronic conditions management and review.

All staff must be supported and must receive the appropriate supervision to complete the essential training relevant to their roles.

The practice must take steps to act on feedback from patients for the purpose of improving the service.

This may include reducing the waiting time for routine pre-bookable appointments and improving patients’ access to the practice by telephone.

The CQC is working closely with NHS Nene Clinical Commissioning Group to support the practice while it addresses the issues identified by the inspection.

Deputy chief inspector of general practice and dentistry in the central region Janet Williamson said: “It is important that the people who are registered with The Meadows Surgery can rely on getting the high quality care which everyone is entitled to receive from their GP.

“During our inspection we saw that staff were respectful and professional.

“We saw examples of reception staff being helpful and courteous to patients attending the practice.

“However, we also found that care and treatment was not always delivered in line with best practice.

“The practice did not have a clear or consistent system in place for reporting, recording and monitoring significant events, incidents and accidents.

“The system in place for learning from safety incidents and significant events was lacking meaning patients were at risk of previous incidents and events reoccurring.

“We know that The Meadows 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 for the practice to receive 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.”