TWO GP surgeries taken over by Great Western Hospital have been ordered to make improvements by the health watchdog.

Moredon Medical Centre and Abbey Meads Surgery were taken on by GWH NHS Foundation Trust after the departure of private health company Integral Medical Holdings in 2019.

Manchester-based IMH was responsible for huge problems as patients at the five Swindon surgeries it managed struggled to get through on the phones and had trouble making appointments.

Inspections at Moredon and Abbey Meads were carried out in February to follow up on concerns previously identified by the Care Quality Commission.

Moredon kept its overall rating of Requires Improvement because of issues around safety and leadership. It was rated Good for being effective, caring, and responsive to patients’ needs.

The surgery moved up from Inadequate after the first inspection under the trust’s management in February 2020.

The trust has been asked by inspectors to establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance.

Meanwhile, Abbey Meads’ overall rating improved from Inadequate to Requires Improvement after receiving the same ratings from the CQC.

The inspector said in their report: “This service was placed in special measures in February 2020 in order for the provider to take steps to improve the quality of the services it provided.

“I am taking this service out of special measures.”

The report acknowledged ‘significant improvements’ were made to the quality of care provided by this service.

But both reports read: “Systems to identify and mitigate risk relating to water safety and security of the premises were not effective and processes to ensure actions taken were recorded and communicated appropriately were not completed.

“Systems to support fire safety in practice were not effective in mitigating risk. There was not consistent oversight of all staff training. The practice did not have effective oversight of their chaperone processes.

“Processes to support consistent coding on patient records were not fully embedded.”

GWH’s chief executive Kevin McNamara admitted there is still a long way to go but remains confident things are heading in the right direction.

He said: “I’m really pleased that inspectors have recognised the significant improvements we have made, and my thanks go to all involved in primary care who have worked very hard work to not just reverse the position we inherited, but to put in place an improvement programme to ensure that patients registered with our practices are well on course to receive the GP services they deserve.

“We have developed an ambitious primary care improvement programme focused on patient experience, accessibility, integration, efficiency and quality of care, and now have a Patient Participation Group in place which will help strengthen the patient voice in improving services.

“It’s also important to remember that many of these improvements have been made while staff were responding to the pandemic. My thanks go to everyone involved in making these positive changes.”

Head of General Practice for London and the South Andy Ford said there is still work to be done to improve both services but also highlighted the positive changes.

He said: “Inspectors were previously aware that there were a number of failings at both Moredon Medical Group and Abbey Meads Surgery, to the extent that we placed Abbey Meads into special measures.

“Under the management of the new provider, significant improvements have been made across both locations since the previous inspections in January 2020. Patients we spoke with reported positive changes in access to appointments and getting through to the surgery on the phone.

“Practice staff described the positive culture and change in the working environment.

“There is still work to do in both services. However, we found staff at both practices had worked steadily to ensure that improvements were made and were thoroughly embedded before they moved to the next steps.

“We will continue to monitor both practices and will return in due course to find what further improvements have taken place.”

To read the full reports visit cqc.org.uk