Care Quality Commission takes further action against Moss Side Medical Centre in Leyland

Moss Side Medical Centre was placed into special measures after it was rated as inadequate following an inspection in May and June.

The inspection was carried out to follow up progress on the improvements CQC told them to make at the practice’s last inspection.

Following the inspection, the overall rating for the practice, as well as the areas of safe, effective, and well-led were again rated as inadequate.

The CQC said this was a focused inspection which did not look at the area of caring.

The service remained in special measures to continue its focus on making significant improvements.

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It also continued to be kept under close review by CQC during this time “to make sure people are safe”.

Sheila Grant, CQC deputy director of operations in the north, said: “During our inspection of Moss Side Medical Centre, we found issues raised at our previous inspection hadn’t been addressed fully and we identified further shortfalls.

“We’ve told the surgery exactly where improvements need to be made and have taken further regulatory action to protect people who use the service. We will report on this when we’re legally able to do so.”

What did inspectors find, according to the CQC?

• The practice weren’t effectively monitoring staff training to assess whether they had the appropriate skills and experience to carry out their roles.
• The practice hadn’t fully completed risk assessments including for fire safety, infection prevention, or for the use of equipment and weren’t managing medications well.
• The process for authorising vaccinations was not effective. Healthcare assistants were vaccinating people without prior authorisation from a GP, and some of the records were missing information such as the date of the vaccination.
• Infection prevention wasn’t being managed well, with a significant number of out-of-date clinical items like pre-injection swabs, plasters, gloves and face masks.

In a CQC report released on December 20, 2023, the GP practice was rated as inadequate.

Prior to this, the practice had been rated good overall following an inspection on December 15, 2018.

Dr Siddiqui was brought as a partner at the surgery following last year’s inspection.

He claimed the unannounced inspection was "harsh" and "punitive rather than supportive", but said the surgery had carried out a raft of improvements.

This included installing a new management team, new reception staff, making improvements to the building, and addressing all issues raised.

He added that the surgery was rated as five starts in its patient survey and that there had been no patient complaints or significant incidents.

The results of this year’s GP Patient Survey showed 87 per cent of patients described their overall experience at the practice as good.

The report will be published on CQC’s website in the next few days.