CQC inspectors place Central London GP practice into special measures

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has placed the St Philips Medical Centre, in Westminster, Central London, into special measures following an inspection in November 2015.

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

The full report of the inspection has been published on the CQC website.

The St Philips Medical Centre provides primary medical services to 12,100 patients within the London borough of Westminster. Inspectors found that the practice was Inadequate for the provision of services that were safe, effective and well-led, and Required Improvement in order to provide services that were responsive and caring.

The systems and processes to address risks were not implemented well enough to ensure patients were kept safe. There were deficiencies in the systems and training processes for safeguarding, infection control, medicines management, dealing with medical emergencies and ensuring the safety of equipment. Staff who acted as chaperones were not trained for the role and the appropriate checks had not been undertaken to ensure that they were able to have contact with children or adults who may be vulnerable.

Although the practice carried out investigations when there were unexpected safety incidents, there was no available evidence to demonstrate that lessons learned from incidents and complaints were communicated throughout the practice to ensure that safety was improved.

There was limited evidence to demonstrate that the practice was auditing patient outcomes to drive improvements in practice performance.

However, patients told inspectors that they had positive interactions with staff and that they were treated with compassion and dignity.

Ursula Gallagher, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice said:

"When we are faced with a provider that is experiencing difficulties in providing adequate care for patients, our first instinct is to work with them to ensure that patient care improves.

“I am hopeful that the St Philips Medical Centre will take the necessary action to address the concerns we have identified during this inspection.

“In particular, the provider must ensure that appropriate systems are put in place to reduce risks to patients, in particular to improve safeguarding, infection control and medicines management. Appropriate processes must also be introduced to ensure consistent learning from incidents and complaints in order to improve patient safety.

“We will re-inspect within six months to check whether sufficient improvements have been made. If sufficient improvements have not been made and there remains a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take further action which may include closure.”

Ends

For further information please contact Yetunde Akintewe, CQC Regional Engagement Manager, on 07471 020 659. For media enquiries, journalists wishing to speak to the press office outside of office hours can find out how to contact the team here. For general enquiries, please call 03000 61 61 61.