Medical centre caring for more than 11,000 patients is rated 'inadequate' and put in special measures

Great Barr Medical Centre did not have effective systems in place to keep patients safe, Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors found.

Other failures involved training, leadership and the management of medicines, according to a CQC report following an inspection at the centre in Queslett Road.

A warning notice was issued by the regulator, with inspectors placing the service into special measures and pointing out that further enforcement action would be taken if improvements were not made.

The CQC report said: "The service will be kept under review and if needed could be escalated to urgent enforcement action.

"Where necessary, another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough improvement, we will move to close the service by adopting our proposal to remove this location or cancel the provider’s registration.

"Special measures will give people who use the service the reassurance that the care they get should improve."

Inspectors said the medical centre provided care for about 11,740 patients.

Outlining the failures, the report said: "The practice did not have effective systems and processes to keep patients safe.

"We found you did not have effective systems for the safe and proper management of medicines.

"We found patients prescribed high risk medicines, and patients with long term conditions were not monitored in line with guidelines.

"Medication reviews were incomplete and did not record adequate information for safe prescribing.

"You did not have effective systems to ensure that persons providing care and treatment had the necessary qualifications, competence, skills and experience to do so safely."

Inspectors also found an ineffective system to manage complaints, no oversight of staff training and no evidence that staff had completed the relevant infection prevention and control training for their role or that non-clinical staff had completed safeguarding training.

The medical centre was rated 'inadequate' in three out of five areas following the inspection in December.

As well as an 'inadequate' rating overall, it was given the same rating in the categories for providing a safe, effective and well-led service.

The CQC said it 'required improvement' as to whether services were 'responsive' and was rated 'good' for services being caring.

A quality and performance report to the Black Country and West Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group governing body, which meets on Tuesday, says the CCG's primary care quality team is providing support to the medical centre and an improvement plan is in place.

It said the GP practice was making "significant effort" to meet the requirements of the warning notice.

Great Barr Medical Centre was unavailable for comment.