Ravensbury Park Medical Centre in Mitcham, south London, has been rated Inadequate in all but one of the five areas Care Quality Commission inspectors examined.
Following the inspection in January 2017 CQC inspectors rated the practice as Inadequate for being safe, effective, responsive and well-led. It was rated Requires Improvement for caring.
Ravensbury Park, which serves approximately 4970 people in the London Borough of Merton, has now been placed into special measures to help it improve.
Actions the practice must now take include:
- Ensuring patients are effectively safeguarded from abuse.
- Ensuring relevant recruitment checks are completed properly.
- Ensuring there are enough staff to meet patients’ needs.
- Ensuring there are adequate arrangements to respond to medical emergencies.
- Implementing an effective system for responding to patient complaints.
Inspectors also found a number of areas where the practice should make improvements, including: identifying and providing support for carers, and implementing a system to record and follow up on actions discussed at meetings.
Ursula Gallagher, CQC's Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice, said:
“We are placing Ravensbury Park Medical Centre into special measures. Services placed in special measures will be inspected again within six months."
“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 a further 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. Special measures will give people who use the service the reassurance that the care they get should improve."
“It was encouraging that patients we spoke to were satisfied with the care they received and thought staff were approachable, committed and caring. However, they also said that it was sometimes difficult to get an appointment.”
Patients registered with the practices being placed into special measures should be aware that a package of support is offered by NHS England and the Royal College of GPs to ensure that there are no immediate risks to patient safety at these GP practices whilst improvements are being made.
A full report of this inspection has been published on our website.
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