The Care Quality Commission (CQC) report on Goodwood Court Medical Centre in Hove has been released today, after the practice was given an urgent closure order in June. This is only the second time the CQC has done this to a GP practice.
The CQC’s decision to cancel the registration meant that the medical centre can no longer legally provide primary medical services at the practice in Cromwell Road, leaving 9,500 patients without a GP.
The commissioner carried out an unannounced inspection at the surgery in June 2015 which they say brought up “serious concerns in relation to insufficient and inappropriately trained staff, out of date medicines and a backlog of requests for repeat prescriptions.” As a result, on Tuesday 9 June, CQC requested an urgent closure order (Section 30) from Brighton Magistrates Court which was granted.
A spokesperson for the CQC said that “there was no room for improvement, it was fairly shocking what we saw. We worked closely with NHS England and the CCG, we still needed to make sure staff could carry out the work they needed to follow through.”
At the time, patients were not told of the closure in advance, but a notice was put onto the door of the practice, and NHS England said they would send letters to all affected patients, according to local newspaper The Argus.
