England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has rated Heaton Norris Health Centre 2, in Stockport, Greater Manchester as Inadequate, and placed the practice into special measures following an inspection by the CQC in February.
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 effective and well-led, Requires Improvement for safe and responsive, and Good for caring.
Alison Holbourn, CQC's Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice, said:
“We found that people registered with Heaton Norris Health Centre 2 are not getting the high quality care which everyone should expect to receive from their GP and found significant areas of concern."
“When we last visited in August 2016, we rated this practice as Requires Improvement, and identified areas where they needed to make improvements. Although there has been some progress, insufficient progress has been made, and along with further concerns found at this latest inspection, we have now rated the practice as inadequate."
“We have told the practice where they must improve and are we placing them into special measures to ensure that action will be taken to improve the quality of care for patients.”
A full report of this inspection has been published on our website.
Some of the areas where CQC have told the practice they must improve:
- The practice must take action to mitigate any risks to patients and ensure their care and treatment is provided in a safe way.
- They must ensure patients with chronic health conditions are reviewed and assessed
- They must analyse significant events and patient complaints to identify themes and take action to try and ensure they don’t happen again.
- They must improve governance arrangements to monitor and review the receipt and use of prescription paper, and infection control audits.
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 by email kerri.james@cqc.org.uk or by phone on 07464 92 9966.
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