England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has decided to continue the suspension of a south east London practice in special measures - after an inspection in September. It was not rated on this occasion.
Dr Asha Sen’s GP practice at The Slade, Plumstead, was rated Inadequate, suspended and placed in special measures after an inspection in March 2016.
Practices placed into special measures by the Care Quality Commission must improve within six months to avoid CQC taking steps to cancel the provider’s registration. Following the concerns found during the March inspection CQC served Dr Sen with a notice to suspend the practice for a period of six months. This will now continue.
Ursula Gallagher, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice, said: “It is important that the people who are registered with Dr Asha Sen can rely on getting the high quality care which everyone is entitled to receive from their GP.
“We returned to inspect Dr Sen’s practice again in September to check whether it had made sufficient improvements to allow the suspension to end. Although not rated on this occasion we found that the practice had not made sufficient improvements to the service and it will continue to be suspended for a further six months.
“Issues around training, infection control, medicine management and fire safety had not reach the levels required for us to be able to end the suspension.”
On a positive note the practice had been redecorated. The practice had installed a lockable cupboard to securely store prescription pads that were not in use and they kept a record of prescription paper batch numbers to ensure their use could be monitored. There was evidence of updated basic life support training for the nurses.
Practice patients are being seen by another GP in the area.
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