A damning report into Devon’s NHS 111 and out of hours GP service has revealed shocking stories of patients who have either had their health put at risk or tragically died due to the service being in need of urgent improvement.
Devon Doctors Limited, which provides an Urgent Integrated Care Service (UICS) across Devon and Somerset, was inspected by independent health and social care regulator the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in July, after concerns were raised about the service.
They included the care and treatment of patients, deaths and serious incidents, call waits, staff shortages, and low morale. Inspectors found 'deep rooted issues'. The CQC concluded it was not assured that patients were being treated promptly enough and, in some cases, they had not received safe care or treatment.
It is calling for the service to make urgent improvements which will be closely monitored.
Since August 2019, the report stated Devon Doctors had received 179 complaints. Nine had been identified by the service as incidents of high risk of harm and six had been identified by the service as incidents of moderate risk of harm.
These had been recorded on the service’s significant event log. However, on review, the CQC identified an additional 30 events from the complaints log which could also have been classed as either moderate or high risk of harm.
Source: Devon Live, 15 September 2020
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