THE British Medical Association has attacked the Care Quality Commission’s inspection regime – saying it runs the risk of doing “serious harm.”

The CQC has announced it will be revising its ‘Intelligent Monitoring’ scheme, which was launched just last month.

The announcement comes shortly after the news that Culverhay Surgery, in Wotton-under-Edge, was market “at risk” by the CQC, causing an outcry among staff and patients.

Commenting on the Care announcement BMA GP committee chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul said: “Today’s admission by the CQC that they are having to recalculate all of their pre-inspection data highlights the concerns that the BMA raised that this risk rating system is not fit for purpose.

“We now know that due to errors in the CQC’s methodology 60 practices have been unfairly branded as being at risk, potentially doing serious harm to their reputation.

"The chopping and changing of target indicators which has resulted in a different risk banding being allocated to GP practices demonstrates the problems of using limited skewed data, rather than adopting a transparent approach.

“The CQC has also reiterated that these bandings are not a reflection of the quality of care a practice provides, a fact that means the inspection regime could even in its revised state mislead the public. The banding system as a whole needs to be withdrawn.

“We warned at the time that simplistic targets would fail to take into account the enormous pressures GP practices are facing, and that skewed and limited information does not tell us about the quality of care.

“These failings have the potential to seriously undermine the trust in the system and patients’ confidence in their GP and it is only right that all of those practices affected are now contacted and receive a full apology.”