Little Lever Health Centre 2 has been rated as inadequate overall and placed it into special measures to protect people following an inspection in November.
This is CQC’s first inspection of the practice which is run by Dr Thiruppathy Subramanian, and provides services to around 3000 people in the Lever area.
As well as being rated as inadequate overall, it was also rated as inadequate for being safe, effective and well-led. It was rated as requires improvement for being caring and responsive.
CQC also served Dr Thiruppathy Subramanian with warning notices in December for three regulation breaches in order to focus their attention on making rapid improvements in those areas of; safe care and treatment, making sure fit and proper people are employed, and good management.
CQC has placed the practice into special measures. As a result, they will be able to access additional support from NHS England and the Royal College of General Practitioners to drive improvements in the provision of care.
Alison Chilton, CQC Deputy Director of Operations in Greater Manchester, said:
“When we inspected Little Lever Health Centre 2, we found a service where serious concerns about people’s safety and how the service was being managed weren’t being adequately addressed. People weren’t receiving the standard of care they have a right to expect, and we placed them into special measures as a result in order to protect people.
“We found significant issues with medicines management and some concerning examples of prescribing errors that hadn’t been properly investigated or learned from. The practice wasn’t managing people’s care effectively, and their required health monitoring wasn’t always consistently carried out.
“Additionally, we were worried about staffing levels and found the practice had limited management presence, with no leadership oversight for more than half of its operating hours. This contributed to delays in appointment times, with people regularly waiting over an hour to be seen.
“The practice’s approach to complaints and significant events was also concerning. Complaints weren’t being properly investigated or responded to, and there was insufficient learning from incidents. In some cases, complaints about the GP were being reviewed by the same GP with no independent party reviewing evidence or drafting responses.
“We have placed the practice in special measures, which means it will be able to access additional support from NHS England and the Royal College of General Practitioners. CQC will continue to closely monitor the service to ensure people are safe whilst improvements are being made and will return to check on their progress.”
