Best and Worst Rated NHS GPs in England

The Best & Worst Rated NHS GP Practices in England, According to CQC Data

The team here at Patient Claim Line analysed Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection data to reveal the locations with the worst rated NHS GPs and the concerns raised by inspectors.

Our study shows that 292 (or 5%) of NHS GP practices in England are currently performing below standard, being rated ‘Requires Improvement’ or ‘Inadequate’ by the CQC.

With the government’s latest plans to reform the NHS, let’s take a look at how GPs inspection ratings stack up.

Key findings:

• 5% of NHS GPs in England (292 in total) are performing below standard, being rated ‘Requires Improvement’ or ‘Inadequate’.
• Only8% of NHS GPs are rated ‘Outstanding’, which is defined as “performing exceptionally well”.
• 90% of NHS GPs in England are ‘Good’, which means they are “performing well and meeting expectations”.
• The areas with the most GPs that failed to meet all required standards by the CQC are Essex (with 6 GPs), followed by the West Midlands and London (4 GPs each).

GPs are assessed on five core categories: safe, effective, caring, responsive, and well-led. These evaluations determine their overall rating, which can be ‘Outstanding’, ‘Good’, ‘Requires Improvement’, or ‘Inadequate’. Here’s a look at the number of GPs that fall into these rating categories:

Where are the worst rated NHS GPs in England?

Concerns raised by CQC inspectors at some of England’s most ‘Inadequate’ GPs

Excerpts are taken from inspection reports of the individual GP practices on the CQC website:

The Limes Medical Centre, Stourbridge, West Midlands

“At the last inspection, we found that there was a lack of oversight for safeguarding processes, there were gaps in staff recruitment, and training, learning and improvement needed strengthening.”

Tulasi Medical Centre, Dagenham, Essex

“There continued to be a risk of harm to patients due to the absence of all the necessary systems and processes being in place, or operating effectively which could adversely impact the quality and safety of the service being delivered at the practice.”

Great Barr Medical Centre, Birmingham, West Midlands

“The practice did not have embedded governance systems, there was a lack of leadership and oversight, the culture did not effectively support high quality sustainable care and there was no evidence of systems and processes for learning, continuous improvement and innovation.”

Prince of Wales Medical Centre, London

“There were gaps in systems to assess and manage health and safety risks, including ineffective policies and procedures, and absence of necessary assessments of risks including health and safety risk assessment.”

Church Langley Medical Centre, Harlow, Essex

“There were gaps in systems to assess, monitor and manage risks to patient safety. Vaccines were not appropriately stored to ensure they remained safe and effective. Appropriate standards of cleanliness and hygiene were not met.”

Primary Care Centre, West Bromwich, West Midlands

“Patients on high-risk medicines were not being monitored or reviewed regularly. We found examples of alerts on patients records to inform the clinical team that a review was required, however this had not been actioned.”

Faircross Health Centre, Barking, Essex

“Misdiagnosis of diabetes in case of three patients.”

“Emergency medication on site not having been managed well, with missed medications not being risk assessed for.”

Where are the best rated NHS GPs in England?

The 278 NHS GPs in England that are rated ‘Outstanding’

Call for reform of the Care Quality Commission

GPs have called CQC one-word ratings “fundamentally flawed” and urged that the CQC inspection regime should be scrapped altogether. But others say that the CQC’s inspections and ratings are an effective system for regulating and inspecting health and social care providers in England.

Methodology

The data was sourced from the Care Quality Commission website on 6th December 2024. Excerpts were taken from inspection reports of the individual GP practices. The data team analysed GPs that have been rated ‘Outstanding’, ‘Requires Improvement’ and ‘Inadequate’. The majority of GPs in England are rated ‘Good’, which is defined as “performing well and meeting our expectations”.

Source: https://www.cqc.org.uk/search/all