Plymouth GPs group is 'inadequate'

Mayflower Medical not safe or well-led

A group of GPs surgeries in Plymouth have been put into special measures.

A new report by health and care industry watchdog, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) assesses Mayflower Medical Group in Plymouth as 'inadequate overall.'

As well as the overall rating, the CQC says Mayflower Medical is inadequate for being safe, effective, responsive and well-led. It was rated 'requires improvement' for being caring.

The group has five branch surgeries and his was the first inspection of the service since it registered with a new provider, Access Health Care Ltd. CQC only visited Mayflower Medical Centre – Stirling Road Surgery during the inspection, which took place in May.

Neil Cox, CQC’s head of inspection for primary medical services, said:“We had numerous concerns when we inspected Mayflower Medical Centre which indicated that the provider was not providing safe care and treatment to patients and monitoring them effectively. It is really important that staff receive the correct support and training and that lessons are learned and shared with the whole team when things go wrong.

“Mayflower Medical Group has now been placed in special measures, which means we will reinspect within six months to check that improvements have been made. If they have not, we will take further action to ensure patients receive safe and effective care.”

Inspectors found the following issues at the practice:

• It did not have a clear and effective process for managing risks, issues and performance.
• There were no systems in place to ensure that complaints or learning from incidents were used to ensure that improvements were made when things went wrong.
• Patients experienced difficulty accessing care and treatment. Feedback from patients raised concerns about the attitude of staff and timely access to information.
• There were no effective processes to ensure that staff remained qualified and competent for their role.
• The system for managing patient and drug safety alerts did not ensure that medicines were safely prescribed.
• The practice could not provide assurance that patients presenting with symptoms indicating a serious illness would be followed up in a timely way.
• It could not provide sufficient evidence to show that patients had a structured and comprehensive review of medicines.
• It did not have a safe system to ensure that patients on high risk medicines were appropriately managed in a timely way.
• It could not provide assurance that patients were monitored effectively.