GP practice rated 'inadequate' and put into special measures after inspection

Bath Street Medical Practice has been rated as inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The health watchdog has demanded improvements over the next six months or warned the practice could be shut down.

Minor surgery was immediately stopped at Bath Street, which has around 2,700 patients, after the CQC findings.

The manager of the medical practice, who did not want to be named, said today it had 'immediately' taken action to address the inspector's concerns.

An initial inspection in November uncovered a 'number of cases' where a GP had not followed the correct guidelines regarding whether suspected melanoma cases should be referred to a specialist.

Inspectors then returned unannounced two days later to carry out a more detailed review of minor surgeries.

Experts found entries made on the clinical system by the GP in question were not always clear and that the GP's record keeping did not contain sufficient information to support some of the decisions made in consultations and also when performing minor surgery.

Record keeping by the GP 'did not reflect that an adequate assessment of the patient's condition had been made and that guidelines were not adhered to', the report said.

The CQC also found errors had also been made around medication and dosage and that many of these errors were not recorded.

'Significant events' at the practice also went unrecorded, the report said, including when the surgery was left without power for hours after a power cut.

However, the surgery was rated as 'good' in terms of how caring it was. Bosses at the surgery said the practice's overall rating was dragged down by the issues over surgery regulations and insisted action had been taken to improve in that area.

The practice manager said in a statement: "The quality and standard of care that we provide to patients is important to us. We are disappointed with the report's overall findings and in response to the inspection we immediately took action to address the inspector's concerns.

"We are, however, pleased to see our caring approach recognised as good. If any of our patients have got any concerns they can contact the practice and we would be happy to discuss these with them."

Professor Steve Field, chief inspector of general practice at the CQC, said in his report: "If insufficient improvements have been made such that there remains a rating of inadequate for any population group, key question or overall, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating the service."