Worksop: Newgate Medical Group issue statement following CQC findings

Following the report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) which ranked Worksop GP surgery Newgate Medical Group as a ‘high concern’ in terms of risk of providing poor care, a statement has now been released to the Guardian.
Guardian NewsGuardian News
Guardian News

A spokesperson at the Newgate Medical Group said: “This report in the Worksop Guardian is as Professor Steve Field says, ‘not meant to be judgmental, as it is only when Practices are inspected.’”

“The CQC have issued a report based on 38 random indicators out of 100 and the practice were found to be at ‘elevated risk‘ for three indicators and three ‘at risk’, the remainder being ‘OK’ and quite a few better than average.”

“All these indicators have been addressed, as the figures relate to the year ending March 2014, and to put into context one of them asks for bone sparing medication via a prescription in our osteoporosis patients to be given. We had four patients out of a total population of 30,000 who needed the medication.”

“We need to improve our flu vaccination targets and we have done this by holding clinics, Saturday morning catch-up clinics, and also NHS England have provided extra funding for practices to help with a ‘mop up’ campaign.”

“Our Practice nurse has been going out to patients to their homes and vaccinating all the housebound and Nursing Home patients. We also intend continuing this and extending this to other patients at risk who can’t get to the surgery.”

“One category of patients we are finding it difficult to reach the targets are our diabetic patients and we have written to all of these and only about 50% responded. We are now in the process of telephoning these patients, but unfortunately we cannot force a patient to have the vaccination.”

“In a latest CCG report, information shows that the overall experience of the GP surgery, where the national average is 85.7 per cent, we are at 93.4 per cent. We are comparable with other local practices for patient access and scored highly on the patient satisfaction survey.”

“Work is always ongoing to improve our services in these busy times when demand is running at a very high level and recruitment is very slow.”

“We are very aware that there have been a lot of social media comments regarding individual doctors and staff, and also to access. Our staff are all very committed to providing a high quality, caring service and we would like to suggest that if anyone has a problem with a member of staff, or any other complaint, to go through this using the NHS complaints procedure.”

“Suggestions for improvement are always welcome and this can be done by writing to the Practice Manager or becoming involved in out Patient Group, who meet regularly on a monthly basis.”

“We feel that the Worksop Guardian should change their headline to a less contentious one as the current headline is likely to cause undue worry to patients who are not at risk.”