A Croydon GP practice has been rated as Inadequate overall and placed in special measures by the Care Quality Commission.
Denmark Road Surgery, which looks after 6,200 patients, was rated Inadequate for being safe, effective and well-led. It was rated Requires Improvement for being caring and responsive, following the inspection in August 2018.
Inspectors found that there were areas where the care of patients was below average. There was no effective system to ensure learning and improvement after things went wrong. There was no effective system to ensure that all staff received the training and support requires for their roles.
Patients found it difficult to get through to the practice by telephone. There was little or no evidence of improvement following complaints. There was insufficient leadership of some areas of practice governance, particularly related to safety and the management of staff.
The practice must now:
- Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.
- Establish effective ways to establish good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.
The practice should now:
- Improve how patients with caring responsibilities are identified and recorded and ensure support is available to them.
- Improve the uptake of cancer screening.
- Improve arrangements for managing confidentiality at reception.
Professor Ursula Gallagher, Deputy Chief Inspector, Primary Medical Services, said: “I am concerned that the Denmark Road Surgery is rated Inadequate overall and must be placed in special measures, which will give it access to support that should help it to improve.
“People who use the service should be reassured that the service will be kept under review and if needed could be escalated to urgent enforcement action. Where necessary, another inspection will be conducted within six months, and if there is not enough improvement we will move to close the service by adopting our proposal to remove this location or cancel the provider’s registration.”
You can read the inspection report in full when it is published on CQC’s website at www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-2697647621
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