South West London GP practice rated as Inadequate

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Dr Ganesan Iyer, of the Inner Park Road Health Centre in South West London, as Inadequate and has placed the provider into special measures following an inspection in November 2015.

Placement into special measures means that the provider will now receive a package of support from NHS England and the Royal College of GPs to help them improve their services.

Under CQC’s programme of inspections, GP practices in England are being given a rating according to whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led.

The Inner Park Road Health Centre provides primary medical services to 2,500 patients within the London borough of Merton.  Inspectors rated the practice as Inadequate overall and for the provision of safe, effective and well-led services, and Requires Improvement for the provision of caring and responsive services.

The full report from the inspection has been published on the CQC website.:

Inspectors found that patients were at risk of harm because appropriate systems for infection control, staff recruitment and complaints were not in place.

Medicine management arrangements did not keep patients safe. Inspectors found out-of-date medicines and single use equipment amongst practice supplies. A broken refrigerator had also not been appropriately repaired.

Staff were not clear about reporting significant events, incidents and near misses and there was no evidence of shared learning or communication with staff.

However, patients told inspectors that they had positive interactions with staff and that they were treated with compassion and dignity.

Ursula Gallagher, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice:

"When we are faced with a provider that is experiencing difficulties in providing adequate care for patients, our first instinct is to work with them to ensure that patient care improves.

“We are hopeful that the Inner Park Road Health Centre will take any necessary action to address the concerns we identified during our most recent inspection.

“In particular, the provider must ensure that robust medicines management, infection control and recruitment processes are introduced, and that shared learning regularly takes place with all practice staff.

“We will re-inspect within six months to check whether sufficient improvements have been made. If sufficient improvements have not been made and there remains a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take further action which may include closure.”

Ends

For further information please contact Yetunde Akintewe, CQC Regional Engagement Manager, on 07471 020 659. For media enquiries, journalists wishing to speak to the press office outside of office hours can find out how to contact the team here. For general enquiries, please call 03000 61 61 61.