England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has rated RK Medical Practice, Wythenshawe, as Inadequate and placed the practice into special measures following an inspection by the CQC in October 2016.
Under CQC’s programme of inspections, all of England’s GP practices are given a rating in five key areas: safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.
The practice was rated as Inadequate for safe, effective and well-led, Requires Improvement for responsive and Good for caring. The services provided by the practice have been rated as Inadequate overall.
Alison Holbourn, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice at CQC said:
“We found that people registered with RK Medical Practice are not getting the high quality care which everyone should expect to receive from their GP practice
“It was worrying to see that comprehensive processes were not in place to keep patients safe, and risks to patients were not well assessed nor well managed.
“We found there were not enough staff to keep patients safe, and it was worrying that employment checks were not always carried out during recruitment.
“Data showed that the outcomes of patients registered with this practice were not as good as when compared to national averages, although it was encouraging to see that audits had taken place which showed some evidence of trying to drive improvements to patient outcomes.
“I do not believe that the practice is likely to resolve its challenges without external support; therefore we are placing the practice into special measures ensures that action will be taken to improve the quality of care for patients.”
A full report of this inspection has been published,
Some of the areas where CQC have told the practice they must improve are:
- The practice must ensure safety incidents are investigated thoroughly and all incidents that should be are reported.
- Ensure the practice recruitment policy and procedure include all required employment checks for all staff for example Disclosure and Barring checks.
- Ensure staff receive adequate training appropriate to their roles and appraisals.
- Ensure there are enough staff to provide consistent care and to increase capacity.
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 by adopting our proposal to remove this location or cancel the provider’s registration.
Patients registered with the practices being placed into special measures should be aware that a package of support is offered by NHS England and the Royal College of GPs to ensure that there are no immediate risks to patient safety at these GP practices whilst improvements are being made.
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For further information please contact CQC Regional Engagement Officer Kerri James on 07464 92 9966 or kerri.james@cqc.org.uk.
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