The official health watchdog has rated six out of eight family doctors’ surgeries in Brighton and Hove as good.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published eight inspection reports since bringing in a new inspection regime for general practitioners (GPs) a year ago.
The CQC said that six out of eight GP practices were “good”, one “requires improvement” and one was “inadequate”.
The “inadequate” surgery – Goodwood Court in Hove – was forced to close although inadequate surgeries can be placed in “special measures” and helped to improve.
The six “good” surgeries were
- The Avenue Surgery in Moulsecoomb
- Sackville Medical Centre in Hove
- The Pavilion Surgery in Old Steine, Brighton
- New Larchwood Surgery in Coldean
- The Practice Willow House in Bevendean
- Brighton Homeless Healthcare
The Practice Whitehawk Road, in Brighton, was graded “requires improvement”. And Goodwood Court was graded “inadequate”.
The breakdown was given in a report from NHS England to Brighton and Hove City Council.
The council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee discussed the report and set out concerns about the fragility of general practice in Brighton and Hove.
Councillor Dick Page asked whether NHS England had an “early warning system” to assess whether surgeries were struggling.
Stephen Ingram, from NHS England, said: “I don’t think there is a systematic approach to an early warning system or whether one could be developed.”
Councillor Lee Wares said: “It’s scandalous that you have no early warning system. How can our patients have any confidence that when they wake up in the morning they will still have a GP?”
Mr Ingram said: “It’s increasingly hard for smaller practices to survive.”
But there was, he said, a lot of information sharing and a variety of indicators
He said: “When practices are aware that they are struggling and they say they are struggling, it can often be put right.”
He said that problems tended to arise when a practice sat on a difficulty or when one or more partner was suspended as this sometimes indicated an unwillingness to engage.
The committee asked to learn more about the situation in Brighton and Hove when they met at Portslade Town Hall yesterday afternoon (Wednesday 25 November).
