THE scale of safety concerns which shut down a Redditch GP have been laid bare in a damning ‘inadequate’ report by health watchdogs.

Legal action was taken against Woodrow Medical Centre in March to strip the practice of its registration after serious concerns about the safety of patients.

The move came after an unannounced visit from the Care Quality Commission (CQC), brought on by concerns raised by a whistle-blower.

In a critical report published this month, inspectors said they found an “insufficient clinical capacity to ensure patients received safe care and treatment”.

Eleven staff members left in nine months, a practice manager resigned, patients were being turned away and told to contact 111, and urgent letters were left in a tray.

A total of 411 patient registrations dating back to December 2016 were still awaiting processing, and the site had the highest number of A&E attendances in the region.

Just months prior in September, the site had been rated ‘good’ by inspectors.

Chief inspector of general practice at the CQC, Professor Steve Field, said: “There were numerous letters found in one of the GPs’ intray dating back to October 2017 with overdue actions that put patients at risk.

“Work labelled as completed was found to be incomplete, again placing patients at risk.

“There were 70 patient records waiting to be summarised which were stored in a cupboard.

“There was a failure of the GPs to treat patients in accordance with national clinical guidelines.

“Children were not protected as there was not an effective system in place to highlight or identify safeguarding concerns.”

In one instance, inspectors found a child on the child protection register for neglect was put “at risk” when the practice took no action after they missed hospital appointments.

In another, a 10-year-old boy with persistent vomiting was prescribed an anti-sickness medicine over the telephone without them being seen or reassessed.

Numerous patients were also not informed of new diagnoses, including diabetes, anaemia and high blood pressure.

One patient who had been in the diabetic range since August 2013 had not been informed or treated, and did not have a diagnosis of diabetes in their records.

On the day of inspection, the CQC also found a patient waiting 50 minutes to be seen because they had not been checked in by the receptionist.

As a result of the findings, the CQC took urgent legal action to strip Woodrow of its registration under section 30 of the Health and Social Act 2008.

Patients are still being seen at the surgery under a caretaker service brought in by Redditch and Bromsgrove Clinical Commissioning Group.