Agenda item

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 (CQC) rating who were both able to support the process the CCG deemed dispersal possible. Patients have the right to exercise choice in registering with any other practice that they live within the boundary of. Over 90% of patients who were registered at Failsworth Group Practice are now registered at either Quayside Medical Practice or Medlock Medical Practice. The CCG was very grateful to both providers for supporting this process. A small number of patients chose other practices closer to their homes and any patient who chose not to register elsewhere was allocated a GP practice on closure meaning nobody was left without a practice.

NHS Oldham CCG supported the providers via funding increased staffing, equipment and stock issues, IT equipment and to ensure the estate has enough capacity both now and in the future. While some of these workstreams are nearing conclusion works to improve the estate will continue. As you may be aware the two remaining practices in the building now occupy the footprint of what was the three with further works being appraised. 

On registering with a new practice a patients electronic record transfers to the new provider and in this case as the vast majority of patients have transferred to another practice in the same building the transfer of the paper record has been straightforward. For patients who chose a practice outside the building their paper records are returned to ‘Primary Care Support England’ who forward to the new practice. This is the same process that would be followed if for example a patient moves house and registers at a new practice. A great deal of clinical correspondence is now electronic so follows to the new practice but there are still some letters that do arrive by mail. When a practice closes, notifications are sent to all providers, although, sometimes this can take a while to filter through. In this instance mail that comes into what was Failsworth Group Practice is being easily transferred to Quayside or Medlock for the appropriate patients.

While the closure was recent the CCG continued to work with both providers to ensure a safe and smooth transition for patients. One of the CCG’s many concerns was that Failsworth Group Practice was not adequately staffed and that is why they subsidised additional staffing during the caretaking period to allow the two remaining providers to recruit. This process of consultation and evaluation will continue in the coming year.

The CCG had not seen any evidence of increases in A&E attendances from the area, this is something they monitor routinely.

The CCG was extremely conscious of the concern and inconvenience in the short term this change has meant for patients, however, these difficult decisions were taken in order to ensure safer, higher quality care for patients previously registered at Failsworth Group Practice.

Thank you for bringing these concerns to our attention and I hope that you will find the information I have been able to provide to date to be helpful.”