A MEDICAL practice has been branded inadequate and placed into special measures following a visit from the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The health watchdog visited the Heaton Medical Practice, in Haworth Road, in September and has since released a damning report outlining its findings.

It was judged to be inadequate in every area, apart from the ‘are services caring?’ marker, for which it received the requires improvement rating.

According to the CQC report, the practice has 5,663 patients and its catchment area is classed as within one of the second most deprived areas in England.

Inspectors said: “Staff were not sufficiently trained in safeguarding awareness relevant to their role. The provider had not acted on issues identified during a recent infection prevention and control audit or ensured that all staff were trained in infection prevention and control.

“The provider did not consistently ensure that a GP was onsite, and Advanced Nurse Practitioners (ANPs) were routinely seeing acutely ill children under the ages of two years, without having received enhanced training to undertake this role.

“There was an absence of risk assessment activity, including both fire and Health and Safety.

“The provider’s management of significant events and learning from them was insufficient.”

Inspectors also said there was not an effective system in place for following up patients with a mental illness who failed to attend their appointments. Concerns were also raised about test results.

The report said: “During the inspection, we identified 210 outstanding test results on the system, 62 of these dated back to January 2018. The majority of these were marked abnormal and had not been opened, read or acted upon. Following the inspection, the provider sent us evidence that this backlog of results and correspondence had been reviewed and acted upon.”

Concerns were also raised that the practice did not have a “full understanding” of the learning needs of staff.

The report highlighted the fact that the practice “could not consistently ensure that end of life care was delivered in a coordinated way”.

The practice was contacted for comment. A note on its website says: “During a routine inspection of our practice the CQC found that we did not meet in full all of the criteria required, resulting in the practice being categorised as inadequate and placed into special measures.We can confirm that the CQC has no immediate concerns with regard to patient safety at the practice and patients should visit us and attend appointments as normal.

“We are working with our partner NHS organisations to ensure that we are fully compliant and we expect to have met the CQC’s recommendations March 2019. We are committed to providing GP services which are of the highest possible standard for patients.”