Improving final report for closed surgery

The latest report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) says the Pennygate Health Centre was offering caring and responsive services – though its rating remained inadequate.

Inspectors returned to the surgery in June and the report was published on September 5.

A previous report rated the surgery inadequate and the practice, now closed, was put into special measures.

The most recent report said it should remain in the classification, but highlighted work which had been done to make improvements.

One of the key areas inspected by the CQC was “caring” which had been noted as requiring improvement previously. By the time of the June inspection, this had been changed to good.

“Feedback from patients was positive about the way staff treat people. Staff understood patients’ personal, cultural and religious needs,” it said.

“Staff helped patients to be involved in decisions about care and treatment,” it added.

The element of “responding to peoples’ needs” also improved, rated good.

“The practice understood the needs of its population and tailored services in response to those needs.

“Care and treatment for patients with multiple, long-term conditions and patients approaching the end of life was coordinated with other services.”

But the surgery had not done enough to lift it out of special measures.

“This service was placed in special measures on December 28. Insufficient improvements have been such that there remains a rating of inadequate for providing sage and well-led services. Where necessary, another inspection will be conducted within six months, and if there is not enough improvement we will move to close the service by cancelling the provider’s registration,” said inspector Professor Steve Field.

The evidence table provided with the report shows the surgery was above national targets in a number of areas, including the number of dementia patients whose care plan had been reviewed face-to-face in the preceding year.

The table also showed that all the surgery’s two-year-olds received the MMR vaccine.

“The practice was deeply involved with the Pennygate Foundation that operates a health and wellbeing centre from a building adjacent to the surgery and which had been started and supported by the provider GP as part of a holistic approach to meeting patients’ healthcare needs,” the evidence table said.

But it also said the practice did not always keep clinicians up to date with current evidence-based practice.