EXCLUSIVE: 'Plans in place' if Lakeside Healthcare at Stamford is forced to close
A recent inspection ruled that more improvements must be made in 6 months to avoid closure
Last updated 23rd Jun 2022
Greatest Hits Radio can exclusively reveal that 'plans will be in place' to fill the gap in GP services if Lakeside Healthcare at Stamford is forced to close.
Councillor Richard Cleaver, who's on the Health Scrutiny Committee for Lincolnshire, told us that people shouldn't be concerned about having access to healthcare:
'The Clinical Commissioning Group and the Care Quality Commission do talk to each other, they will have a plan in place to make sure nobody suffers as a result of the ultimate sanction being imposed which is for them (Lakeside Healthcare at Stamford) to lose their license effectively, so I don't think we should live in fear of that', he said.
'Lakeside is still operating out of two sets of premises in Stamford, one of which is leased by NHS Lincolnshire themselves. So they could take back that lease and put a different provider into St Mary's Surgery if they so wished.'
A window for improvement
A new Care Quality Commission report ruled that after the latest inspection, Lakeside Healthcare at Stamford would have an overall rating of 'requires improvement'.
In their June 2022 overview, the following ratings we're given to each of the five categories of inspection:
- Safe - Inadequate
- Effective - Requires Improvement
- Caring - Requires Improvement
- Responsive - Requires Improvement
- Well-led - Requires Improvement
That means the practice had improved by one rating in three areas, which can be seen compared to the June 2021 overview when it was rated overall as 'inadequate':
- Safe - Inadequate
- Effective - Inadequate
- Caring - Requires Improvement
- Responsive - Inadequate
- Well-led - Inadequate
Despite the slightly better ratings, the CQC stated in their report that it would move to close the practice if further improvements aren't seen in the next 6 months:
"If, after re-inspection, the service fails to continue to make sufficient improvement, and is still rated as inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating the service."
"The service will be kept under review and if needed could be escalated to further urgent enforcement action. Where necessary, another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough improvement, we will move to close the service."
A target set
Teri White, the hub manager of Lakeside Healthcare, was brought in as part of the ongoing improvement strategy at Lakeside.
She says that despite progress being made in some areas, more efforts will be made to ensure services are brought up to standard:
“As a team we are determined to get Lakeside Healthcare at Stamford to where it needs to be for our patients and stakeholders and have a positive relationship with our Patient Participation Group.
“We have made significant changes since the previous inspection, including employing more staff, restructuring our teams, introducing new management and upgrading our telephone system. We also deployed staff proactively to deal with areas of greatest demand and installed a new online consultation system, which is accessible out of surgery hours. This raft of measures was all aimed at improving administrative and clinical capacity and increasing access for patients, at a time of huge demand.
“Although we have carried out a massive amount of work in a relatively short space of time, as recognised in this report, we acknowledge that more needs to be done and so will carefully prioritise and tackle the actions identified by the CQC."