Issue - meetings

To receive Questions from the Public, in accordance with the Council’s Constitution

A public question was received from Diane Drinkwater and Pamela Griffiths:

“As a former patient from Failsworth Group Practice I am registered with another practice now based at the Keppel building, as are probably most of the former FGP patients.  From the Facebook group Pam and I administer we can see there are a lot of issues relating perhaps to the burden of many additional patients.

Can you provide us with answers please about:

1.    What consultation had taken place about the decision to disperse patients from Failsworth Group Practice.

2.    How many patients were involved in this consultation and what form did the consultation take and what duration was it held over?

3.    What support has been available to re-list 12000 patients from FGP across other surgeries? What planning and support was offered to other GP services in Oldham to enable this to go smoothly?

4.    What actions can be taken to resolve issues with patient notes being referred back to FGP rather than the new GP practice patients have chosen?

5.    What consultation is taking place to show the outcomes of the closure of FGP, signing up process for new GPs and its impacts on existing local surgeries and the impact on local residents?

6.    What data is available from A&E self-referrals that might indicate the closure of FGP has led to an increased burden at local hospital accident and emergency centres?”

Councillor McLaren responded as follows:

“I am sorry to learn of some the difficulties that are being experienced.

Due to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rating Failsworth Group Practice as overall inadequate and subsequent concerns about the quality of care being delivered to patients, NHS Oldham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) made the decision to terminate the contract with the providers at Failsworth Group Practice. They were served notice of their contract termination on Wednesday 26th January 2022 with termination taking effect at midnight on Friday 28th January 2022. In rare, emergency circumstances such as this the CCG has to take immediate action to ensure continuity of care for patients and unfortunately these timescales do not allow for the usual consultation with patients about the future of services.

The CCG was responsible for ensuring that patients have continuity of access to essential, safe and high-quality primary care services, so as a result of the current service provider being terminated, the CCG put in place an emergency “caretaker” arrangement with Quayside Medical Practice which is located in the same building as Failsworth Group Practice (The Keppel Building). Caretaking arrangements commenced at midnight on Friday 28th January 2022. These actions were taken to ensure that the practice’s patients can access safe and high-quality services. Over the past months the practice list has been dispersed and the practice closed on 20th May 2022.

Dispersal involves the closure of the existing practice and requires patients to register with another practice in their locality. As there were two other practices within the Keppel Building both with a ‘Good’ Care Quality Commission  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5

To receive Questions from the Public, in accordance with the Council’s Constitution

There were no public questions for the Committee to consider.