Northampton GP practice rated ‘requires improvement’ due to issues around medicine monitoring

A Northampton GP practice has been rated as ‘requires improvement’ by the care watchdog, following a series of issues surrounding medicine monitoring.

The Pines Surgery in Harborough Road, Kingsthorpe was inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) on January 11.

In a report published this week, the practice was rated ‘requires improvement’ in two categories, including safe and responsive to people’s needs. In the effective and well-led categories, the service was rated ‘good’. In its last inspection in 2016, the surgery was also rated ‘good’ in all categories.

In the most recent inspection, the CQC said the surgery, which has a patient population of 9,849, breached regulation relating to safe care and treatment, specifically that there were gaps in the review of patients who were prescribed medicines that required monitoring. However, inspectors also said staff dealt with patients with “kindness and respect”.

The report states: “Remote reviews of the clinical record system showed some patients who were prescribed medicines that required monitoring were overdue a review and relevant safety alerts had not always been responded to.”

Examples were given including patients overdue monitoring for a warfarin alternative. The patients reviewed by the inspectors had the appropriate blood tests, but had not had a creatinine clearance calculated, which inspectors say is “necessary to determine safe dosing of the medicine”.

Similarly, inspectors identified that potentially 42 patients out of 178 may have also been overdue for a review for epilepsy medicine. Inspectors also said a number of patients on a combination of medicines used to treat high blood pressure were overdue monitoring.

To address the issues, CQC has said the surgery “must ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients”

Furthermore, inspectors also noted that the uptake of cervical screening was below the 80 percent target set by the UK Health Security Agency. CQC has also asked the practice to improve this uptake.

As well as the issues highlighted, inspectors did also raise a number of positives about the practice.

The report adds: “Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.

“The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

“The practice used significant events and complaints to identify areas of learning and improvement.”

The Pines Surgery was contacted for comment, however directed this newspaper to the Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board. The care board issued a statement as the local commissioner of GP surgeries, but highlighted that the surgery is an independent provider, so the board could not speak on its behalf.

A spokesperson for the board said: “As the commissioner of GP services, our priority is ensuring patients can access safe and high quality services that meet the high standards they rightly expect. A recent CQC review, which was rightly thorough, has highlighted a number of areas where the Pines Surgery needs to improve, although it recognises there are areas the practice is delivering well on.

“We understand patients reading the report may be concerned and we would like to reassure them we will be working with the practice to ensure the required improvements are made as quickly as possible.”

Read the full CQC report here.