A MEDICAL practice in Dodworth is being kept under review by health inspectors and could face urgent enforcement action and even closure if improvements are not made.

Dodworth Medical Practice, in Apollo Court Medical Centre on High Street, was visited by inspectors from the Care Quality Commission after the watchdog received ‘feedback’.

It was rated as inadequate overall, and as inadequate for being safe and well-led.

The practice has been the subject of complaints from patients who have said in the past that they have sometimes queued for 45 minutes but couldn’t get an appointment for weeks.

The practice has been placed in special measures and will be inspected again within six months.

An inspection report published this week said if there was not enough improvement, inspectors will move to close the service by adopting their proposal to ‘remove this location or cancel the provider’s registration’.

The report said inspectors had significant concerns about leadership and governance, and that services were not safe.

It said: “Safety was not a sufficient priority. There was limited measurement and monitoring of safety performance.”

Other concerns raised included:

- No clear systems to keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse

- Inadequate systems to assess, monitor and manage risks to patient safety

- No reliable systems for appropriate and safe handling of medicines

- Little evidence the practice learned and made improvements when things went wrong

The report went on to say: “The practice did not organise and deliver services to meet all patients’ needs. Patient needs and preferences were not always taken into account. Patients were unclear who their named GP was. Patients reported they did not always have continuity of care as they saw different GPs.”

The report said patients said more recently they were able to access care and treatment within an acceptable timescale, but did not always have timely access to initial assessment, test results, diagnosis and treatment as results were not always reviewed by a GP in a timely manner.

But it stated: “Waiting times, delays and cancellations were minimal and managed appropriately. Patients with the most urgent needs had their care and treatment prioritised. Patients reported that the appointment system had been reviewed and was easy to use.”

The report said more appointments were made available on the day for patients to be seen.

The report said the majority of administrative staff became employed during this year, and clinical staff had started from February 2017 onwards.

The report said the provider Federated General Practice Partnership Limited could not demonstrate staff had the appropriate knowledge for their role, for example, to carry out reviews for people with long-term conditions, older people and people requiring contraceptive reviews as records of staff training were not kept.

It said not all staff received infection prevention and control training within the first four weeks, not all staff had undertaken recent child and adult safeguarding training and fire training was informal.

The management had identified this prior to the inspection and all staff had completed a training needs questionnaire.

The report said staff did help patients to live healthier lives, identified patients who may need extra support and directed them to the relevant services.

Staff encouraged patients to monitor and manage their own health and discussed changes to care or treatment with patients.

The practice was not rated for being caring, this was because there was limited evidence available, but the report said staff treated patients with kindness, respect and compassion, helped them to be involved in decisions about their care and respected their privacy and dignity.

The Chronicle contacted the practice but no-one responded to our enquiry.

Are you a patient at Dodworth Medical Practice? If so, share your experiences by emailing lynsey.bradford@barnsley-chronicle.co.uk