England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has told an Oldham GP practice that it must improve. Care Quality Commission inspectors visited Dr Ahmed Choudhury – also known as the Oldham Family Practice - in December 2017.
Inspectors have rated the practice as inadequate for safety, effectiveness and well led and requires improvement for caring and responsiveness. Overall the practice has been rated as inadequate.
A full report of the inspection can be found on our website.
The report highlights a number of areas of concern including:
The practice did not have clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice did not always record or investigate, so learning from them was not demonstrated.
The practice did not have adequate systems to safeguard children and vulnerable adults from abuse. GPs told us they did not attend any formal safeguarding meetings. There was no system in place to follow up children who did not attend appointments
Beverley Cole, CQC Head of General Practice in the North, said:
“The practice had gone to the lengths of adopting safety procedures and had a suite of safety policies, and those we requested had been reviewed. However, policies were not always followed, for example the safeguarding children and young people policy. The practice manager told us there was no written guidance about reporting significant events."
“The practice was not able to demonstrate that staff were appropriately trained. Not all staff had received training in safeguarding. One practice nurse had not been trained in safeguarding children, and there was only evidence of the other practice nurse having level one training in safeguarding children, instead of the required level two."
“There were systems for safely managing healthcare waste. However, we found 24 out of date syringes stored with in-date syringes in a clinical room. One of these had an expiry date of October 2015. Having systems in place is clearly good practice, but ensuring they are adhered to is crucial to the success of the safe management of the practice"
“It is important that the people who are registered with the practice can rely on getting high quality care. The service has been placed in special measures and will be kept under review and if needed could be escalated to urgent enforcement action, and if there is not enough improvement we will move to close the service.”
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