The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Spectrum Health in Oadby, Leicester, inadequate overall, following an inspection in June.
Spectrum Health is a GP practice with a patient population of approximately 13,500 people.
The inspection was carried out to follow up on breaches identified at the previous inspection and to gain assurances following concerns raised with CQC about patient safety at the practice.
Following the inspection, the overall rating for the service has dropped from requires improvement to inadequate. It was rated inadequate for being safe, effective and well led, and rated good for being responsive and caring.
The service is now in special measures which means it will be kept under review and re-inspected to check if sufficient improvements have been made.
Janet Ortega, CQC’s head of integrated care and GP inspection, said:
“When we inspected Spectrum Health, it was disappointing to see that the quality of care had declined since we last visited, and we found new areas of concern
“There was a significant backlog in medicine reviews and there was no effective process in place for the management of patient referrals, which posed a potential risk and delay to patients’ care and treatment.
“Some newly appointed staff were allocated lead roles without the necessary support and guidance needed to carry out the job. In addition, staff feedback showed some people felt unable to speak openly without the fear of retribution which is unacceptable.
“However, it was good news for people that the practice had increased their opening hours and appointment availability following patient feedback.
“Feedback from the national GP patient survey was generally positive and the practice continued to look for opportunities to support the local community. For example, the practice had joined with 12 local schools to provide quarterly health information forums to support young people in the community.
“We have told the provider what improvements need to be made to address the concerns identified. We will monitor the service to ensure people are safe and will return to check on progress.”
Inspectors found the following during this inspection:
- The practice did not have clear systems and processes to keep patients safe. We found actions from medicine reviews were not acted on
- The practice did not have appropriate systems in place for the safe management of medicines. This included a lack of medicine reviews
- We found that on occasions that clinical staff were left alone in the practice without access to a prescribing clinician
- Staff had been allocated roles but had not received the appropriate training to be able to do their roles effectively
- Governance processes were ineffective. We found limited oversight by the leadership team of outstanding tasks awaiting action
- A range of audits had been completed, however we found limited evidence of quality improvements
- Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.