Three doctors’ surgeries within South Holland have been rated as at highest risk of providing poor care in new rankings.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has compiled the rankings of GP centres across the country and put each surgery in bands numbered one to six, with one being those at most risk.
Munro Medical Centre in Spalding, Sutton Medical Group in Long Sutton and Holbeach Medical Centre are all within Band 1, with risks highlighted including care and concern shown by doctors and nurses, lack of patient involvement in decisions relating to their care and concerns over patients being overheard in reception areas.
Other problems include surgery opening hours and difficulties getting through to the surgery to make appointments, as well as provision of care plans for people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or other psychoses and potentially low numbers of women aged 25 to 64 who had received a cervical screening test in the past five years.
The three Band 1 surgeries in South Holland are among 864 nationally placed in the most at risk category.
The category makes up 11 per cent of the total 7,276 practices ranked by the health watchdog.
In total there are 7,661 GP practices in England. The highest proportion of “riskiest” surgeries are in London, with the lowest number in the North East.
Moulton Medical Centre was rated in Band 2, while Gosberton Medical Centre, Pennygate Health Centre and Beechfield Medical Centre in Spalding, Littlebury Medical Centre in Holbeach and Abbeyview Surgery in Crowland were all placed in Band 6 – the least risky.
In making their judgements, the Care Quality Commission looked at whether surgeries are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led and used 38 different indicators to calculate the level of risk.
Measures including patient experience, care and treatment were taken into account, based on “sources including surveys and official statistics”.
Other indicators included:
Unnecessary A&E admission
High use of antibiotics
Diabetes care
Dementia diagnosis rates
Coronary heart disease incidence
How sleeping pills are prescribed
The Care Quality Commission will now use the ratings to help target inspections of GP surgeries.
It hopes to have inspected all surgeries by March 2016.
