Medical centre told to improve
THE business manager of a medical centre that was rated ‘ requires improvement’ overall says she feels the centre was ‘penalised’ with recruiting issues caused by pressures beyond her control.
Dr Bello’s Surgery and King Street Medical Centre in Accrington, was given an ‘inadequate’ rating for safety and ‘requires improvement’ overall in July, and the follow up inspection took place on November 23.
A report, published on December 16, acknowledged improvements in the quality of patient medicine reviews and the monitoring of the pharmaceutical fridges, however, their ‘inadequate’ rating for safety will remain until the next inspection.
The King Street medical centre was rated ‘requires improvement’ for being effective and well-led, ‘inadequate’ for safety and rated ‘good’ for being caring and responsive.
The CQC inspection in July last year found 245 patients were prescribed medicines used to treat high blood pressure, however 55 of these didn’t receive the necessary healthcare monitoring.
However, the follow up inspection found that “appropriate action had been taken to ensure patients received medicine reviews and the associated required health care monitoring such as blood tests.”
The report reads: “Good progress in meeting the requirements of the warning notice had b e en achieved.
“Patients who had been prescribed more than two courses steroid medicines had received a follow up clinical consultation.
“We noted improvements in the quality of patient medicine reviews.
“The monitoring of the pharmaceutical fridges had improved.
“We feel penalised with issues with recruiting and it is so hard to get GPs and nurses.”
“Staff had received training on the importance of the cold chain and policies and an audit process was in place to ensure safe storage of vaccines.”
Inspectors noted that there are two areas requiring further improvements and the practices should introduce a system of coding the provision of steroid cards on the patient’s electronic record.
It was also recommended that the vaccine/ medicine expiry date within the log of the stock
check for these medicines.
Business manager, Lisa Bello was ‘disappointed’ with the review as it was the first time the surgery didn’t receive a ‘Good’ rating.
Mrs Bello said: “We are very disappointed with the results and we have always had a good rating.
“We feel penalised with issues with recruiting and it is so hard to get GPs and nurses.
“We didn’t have a practice nurse for a while, and I worked tirelessly to find
another and I have but it took me a year.
“There’s a shortage of nurses since a lot are working for agencies now because it’s better money. “It has been frustrating. “We have only one GP for King Street who sees just under 2,000 patients and for Dr Bello he sees just under 3,000 patients alone. It is our responsibility to stop patients from going to hospital and we can only do that if we have the resources to support our patients.”
Mrs Bello says that the inspectors were pleased with the improvements, however this won’t be reflected in the CQC rating until their next inspection.
She added: “Hyndburn is a very deprived area, and we have a lot of patients who can be aggressive and threatening towards staff.
“I am very proud of my staff who all work really hard and we all try our best everyday.
“I could not do my job without my team who are absolutely amazing.”