Surgery placed in special measures
ATROUBLED Rishton GP service has been placed in special measures by health watchdogs following concerns for patient safety.
Rishton and Great Harwood Surgery, which serves more than 1,000 people, has been told to make urgent improvements or risk losing its licence or other enforcement action.
The service, which has a site on High Street in Rishton and Water Street in Great Harwood, has been rated ‘inadequate’ by Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors following a recent inspection.
Since it was registered in November 2018, inspectors have raised concerns about the “safe” and “well-led” aspects of the surgery on two occasions.
In a report published this week, the CQC highlighted a lack of communication between the practices and other health and social care professionals to protect children at adults at risk of “serious harm”.
Inspectors highlighted a desperate need for procedures to be put in place to monitor children with a child protection plan or those identified as at risk.
On visiting, officers found that incidents involving two families which resulted in hospital visits had been reported to the GP surgery but not acted upon.
The report says: “Scrutiny of these records included two different families and recent communications from secondary health care services including A&E and a minor injury unit had been received about some of these children.
“These letters had been scanned and filed into the patient record without GP scrutiny. The GP confirmed they would take immediate action to liaise with the appropriate local authority safeguarding leads to advise of these recent incidents.”
Concerns were also raised after inspectors found that neither the Rishton nor Great Harwood sites had any antibiotics available to administer in a medical emergency, such as for patients with bacterial meningitis.
At a previous inspection, in April last year, CQC officers were told that the antibiotics were on order, however they had not materialised by the time of the second inspection seven months later.
They also found that there was no system to monitor the expiry dates of needles and syringes and that all of those held in the doctor’s bag were out of date.
On top of this, targets were not being met for the uptake of cervical smears, with less than 70 per cent of eligible women (69.6 per cent) attending their appointment.
This falls well below the recommended England average of 80 per cent.
The CQC will now monitor Rishton and Great Harwood Surgery to ensure that the correct steps are being taken to improve the service.
The surgery has been contacted for comment.