A HEALTHCARE practice has hit back at the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC’s) comments and ‘requires improvement’ rating in their first report, claiming the information is “inaccurate”.

The Hackwood Partnership, in Essex Road, featured in a previous Gazette article in February about five practices in the Basingstoke area that received poor ratings from the healthcare watchdog.

The CQC published its latest report for The Hackwood Partnership on its website last month, but then removed it as it was only a draft version and the surgery had not been given a chance to respond to it. It was later republished and then covered in the Gazette.

Practice manager Scarlett Hooper said: “We remain fully committed to delivering the best healthcare for our patients at a time of unprecedented challenge for the NHS. To that end, we acknowledge the recent CQC report on the Hackwood Partnership.

“It is, however, unfortunate that the CQC has chosen to release the report in full before we had been given the opportunity to respond to its findings in draft which we believe contains inaccurate information and which we are challenging.”

The practice received the rating due to, among other areas, the condition of the premises, which was described as ‘dusty’ by the report, due to the external contractor changing, and the fact that the practice didn’t have a hearing loop for hard of hearing patients.

However, Hackwood was praised for the quality of care given by the staff to patients at the practice. The report said: “Members of staff were courteous and very helpful to patients and treated them with dignity and respect.”

There were also clear indications from patient surveys that they were happy with the services that they were provided with, and that the practice was rated higher (in some areas) than many others on the national GP patient survey.

“We would also point out this report relates to a visit in September 2016 and we have already addressed some of the areas identified as needing improvement and are considering other actions,” the practice manager continued.

“We remain resolute in our pursuit of delivering the best primary healthcare for patients.”