- GP practice
Archived: Seaforth Farm Surgery
We cancelled the registration of Hailsham Medical Group on 24 April 2026 following an inspection at Seaforth Farm Surgery. This was because we found serious concerns related to safe care, effective management and treatment of patients, and systemic failures of governance.
Assessment report published 16 April 2026
Contents
On this page
- Overview
- Shared direction and culture
- Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
- Freedom to speak up
- Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
- Governance, management and sustainability
- Partnerships and communities
- Learning, improvement and innovation
Well-led
We looked for evidence that service leadership, management and governance assured high-quality, person-centred care; supported learning and innovation; and promoted an open, fair culture.
At our last inspection, we rated this key question as Requires Improvement. At this inspection, the rating remains the same.
The service had made insufficient improvement and remained in breach of legal regulation in relation to good governance.
This service scored 39 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.
The service did not have a shared vision, strategy and culture based on transparency, equity, equality and human rights, diversity and inclusion, and engagement.
Leaders did not have a shared vision for the future of the service. Staff were aware of ongoing strategic disagreements in the senior leadership team and did not have confidence in the service’s ability to improve.
Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
The service did not have inclusive leaders at all levels who understood the context in which they delivered care, treatment and support, or who embodied the culture and values of their workforce and organisation. Leaders did not have the skills, knowledge, experience and credibility to lead effectively, and they did not do so with integrity, openness and honesty.
The service had failed to improve practice culture. Feedback from staff indicated ongoing staff discomfort with the management culture. Staff were not confident that concerns raised would be dealt with appropriately or effectively. We saw that the partnership did not work collaboratively with the staff team or with other partners, which was leading to continued inability to make improvements to the safety of the service. At the time of inspection, the Integrated Care Board had employed an independent primary care consultancy to support the service to improve. However, the service had not fully engaged with this company, and they were not using this opportunity to develop their own leadership capacity and governance systems. For example, the consultancy company had identified the service’s significant event process as requiring improvement. However, the service had not engaged with suggested improvements and concerns remained with how incidents were managed.Freedom to speak up
People did not feel they could speak up and that their voice would be heard.
During inspection we asked staff to complete a confidential questionnaire, and we carried out staff interviews. Four out of 5 staff who returned questionnaires indicated that they did not have confidence they could speak up without fear of retribution and that leaders did not respond effectively to concerns or grievances raised by staff members.
Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
We did not look at Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Well-led.
Governance, management and sustainability
The service did not have clear responsibilities, roles, systems of accountability and good governance. They did not act on the best information about risk, performance and outcomes, or share this securely with others when appropriate. These concerns were also identified at our previous inspection.
Governance systems remained weak. The service was unable to demonstrate they had improved oversight of non-medical prescribers and staff employed in advanced clinical practice. The service shared with us documents outlining practitioners’ scope of practice, but these had not been effectively implemented or monitored. The medical associate professionals had been assigned a supervising GP, however in practice, this supervision was ineffective and the service had failed to act on information about risk. Cases of inappropriate management were missed and were not reviewed in line with supervisory requirements.
The service did not have effective systems of clinical governance in place to provide safe and effective care for people with some long-term conditions. We found the service’s management of diabetes did not keep people safe. We found a pattern of cases where the service had failed to identify and act on potential diagnoses of diabetes. (A delayed diagnosis of diabetescan lead to serious complications because high blood sugar levels can cause damage over time.) The service did not have quality assurance processes in place to support the timely diagnosis of diabetes.
We found records relating to the care and treatment of people using the service were not always complete, accurate or up to date. The service was not always managing booked appointments in a transparent manner, creating unnecessary confusion for people and members of the administrative team, and potential delays in diagnosis. The medical records associated with these appointments were sometimes missing, potentially inaccurate and did not appear to be always contemporaneous. For example, during our review of people’s records, we identified 2 appointment bookings for dementia reviews. However, there was no evidence in either person’s record of any consultation and no other information confirming that the appointment had either taken place or not.
There was a lack of accountability and functional decision making in the senior partnership team. We saw evidence of staff members requesting support or senior attendance (for example, when there were gaps in clinical staffing) and these requests being refused or ignored.
Partnerships and communities
We did not look at Partnerships and communities during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Well-led.
Learning, improvement and innovation
The service did not have the capability to focus on continuous learning, innovation and improvement across the organisation and local system.
The service was unable to demonstrate improvements to continued areas of concern. For example, there remained insufficient oversight of independent prescribers, advanced practitioners and medical associate professionals. Staff remained uncomfortable about raising concerns and feared retribution for doing so. The senior leadership had not been able to learn from external support put in place to develop stronger governance systems and support the ‘turnaround’ of the service.