A Harlesden GP surgery has been rated Inadequate overall by the Care Quality Commission after an inspection in May 2017.
Brent borough’s Park Road Surgery was rated Inadequate for being safe, effective and well-led. It was rated Requires Improvement for being caring and responsive.
The practice, which looks after 2,100 people in the area, was inspected again in May as a follow up to a comprehensive inspection in early 2016, when the practice was rated as Good.
Inspectors found that the practice must now:
- Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.
- This must include introducing systems to ensure all clinicians are kept up to date with patient safety alerts, national guidance and guidelines and put measures in place to monitor that these are being followed.
- Ensure that staff are aware of who is carrying out the role of safeguarding lead and that all staff carrying out the role of chaperone, receive suitable training.
- Put a system in place to ensure repeat prescriptions are managed safely.
- Ensure effective feedback from the national GP Patient Survey for the purposes of continually evaluating and improving the quality of the service.
The practice should also:
- Continue to monitor supplies of emergency medicines.
- Ensure recruitment for locum clinical staff is safe and these staff have access to clinical updates and best practice guidelines.
- Implement a failsafe process to ensure that results for all specimens taken for cervical cytology have been received.
- Review the current arrangements for ensuring urgent referrals have been received and appointments made.
- Review the current uptake for cancer screening programmes among eligible patients - with a view to improvement.
- Review and improve how patients with caring responsibilities are identified and recorded on the clinical system to ensure that information, advice and support is made available to them.
Professor Ursula Gallagher, CQC Deputy Chief Inspector of GP Practices, said:
“Whist I acknowledge that there has been significant turbulence in this practice I am nonetheless concerned that a practice that in early 2016 was rated as Good overall has deteriorated to an Inadequate rating. I am placing this service in special measures. Services placed in special measures will be inspected again within six months."
“The service will be kept under review and if needed could be escalated to urgent enforcement action. Where necessary, another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough improvement we will move to close the service."
“In the meantime special measures will give people who use the service the reassurance that the care they get should improve.”
You can read the full report on our website.
Ends
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The service will be kept under review
Professor Ursula Gallagher, CQC Deputy Chief Inspector of GP Practices