England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has rated Dr Sharif Hossain’s practice in Southwark, south London, as Inadequate overall.
It was rated Inadequate for being safe and well-led, Requires Improvement for being effective and Good for being responsive and caring after an inspection at the Lister Primary Care Centre in September 2016. The centre is home to two other GP practices.
CQC inspectors found that risks to patients were not always assessed or well managed. Inspectors also found that appropriate recruitment and monitoring checks were not being completed for all staff and that three of the practice’s nurses did not have medical indemnity insurance in place.
The practice, which serves approximately 5,200 patients, had no system in place to monitor the use of handwritten prescriptions. Safeguarding processes and procedures were not sufficiently robust to ensure that vulnerable patients were kept safe.
Some practice policies were not fit for purpose or were missing. For example the practice did not have a policy for dealing with the spillage of bodily fluids.
Areas where the practice must make improvements include:
- Effective systems and processes which assess, monitor, manage and mitigate risks to the health and safety of patients arising from significant events and patient safety alerts must be in place. It must also ensure all staff are involved in subsequent discussion and learning from incidents.
- Practice safeguarding processes must keep vulnerable individuals safe from abuse and harm.
- Action must be taken to assess and mitigate risk including those associated with infection control, fire safety and medicines management.
- All staff must have professional indemnity insurance and robust recruitment processes must be in place.
Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
Patients inspectors spoke with said they found it easy to make an appointment with a specific GP and there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
Professor Ursula Gallagher, CQC Deputy Chief Inspector of GP Practices, said: “It is important that people who are registered at Dr Sharif Hossain’s practice can rely on getting the high quality care which everyone is entitled to receive from their GP."
“We have now placed the practice into special measures, which means we will inspect again in six months’ time. This will enable the practice to access all the support it needs via NHS England, using the vulnerable practices scheme.”
A full report of the inspection, which details inspectors’ findings and highlights the areas where improvements must be made, has been published on our website.
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