Wigan doctor's surgery warned again by health watchdogs

Parbold Surgery, on The Green, has again been rated “requires improvements” in a report released by Care Quality Commission inspectors.

The practice, which has been highly rated by its patients, was pulled up last year for breaching a health and social care regulation.

When asked if the surgery was “safe” and “well-led”, inspectors said these areas require improvement, with concerns about the handling of medication and a mail system which risked key correspondence being missed by GPs.

Eight months on, the surgery has been marked down in the same areas, with inspectors saying that some improvements had been made but other aspects were causing concern.

A report published this week said: “Although systems to manage and identify learning following incidents and near misses had improved, oversight was insufficient to ensure they were operating effectively.

“Incidents and associated learning were not logged in a timely manner and documentation was not always comprehensive enough to provide a clear description of what had happened. Risks were not always comprehensively mitigated, in particular in relation to recruitment processes.

“Actions following receipt of safety alerts were not always appropriate to fully mitigate risks to patients,”

The service, which has broken two health and social care regulations, continues to prove popular with its patients and has been rated as “good” at dealing with patients from all age groups and backgrounds.

The report highlighted that the surgery’s registered patients responded well when asked about the services.

Inspectors wrote: “Patient feedback was strongly and consistently positive about the standard of care and treatment received.

“Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.

“Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.”

The CQC will continue to monitor the GP surgery and work with them to ensure that correct procedures are taken to protect patient safety and to make sure lessons are learnt when negative incidents occur.

Parbold Surgery has been ordered to explain to the authority how it plans to make improvements.