The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated an east London GP practice inadequate and placed it in special measures.
CQC inspected Francis Road Medical Centre, Leyton, after identifying issues with the service through its regular monitoring.
The inspection found the service was not providing standards of care people have a right to expect.
In addition to rating it inadequate overall following the inspection, CQC rated the service inadequate for being safe, effective, responsive to people’s needs and well-led. It rated it requires improvement for being caring.
The service was previously rated good overall.
Due to the poor care inspectors found, CQC placed the service in special measures. This means it is being kept under close monitoring and it will be subject to further enforcement action if improvement is not made.
Jane Ray, CQC deputy director for London, said:
“Standards of care at Francis Road Medical Centre were below those people have a right to expect.
“This includes a failure to ensure people could access care and treatment in a timely way.
“We also found people were treated with a lack of kindness, respect and compassion, and people’s complaints weren’t always used to improve the care provided.
“We are keeping Francis Road Medical Centre under close review and we will not hesitate to take further action if we are not assured it has made significant improvement.”
The inspection also found:
- There weren’t adequate systems and processes to keep people safe, including from abuse
- Appropriate standards of cleanliness and hygiene were not met
- Staff did not always have the information they needed to deliver safe care and treatment
- The practice did not have systems for the appropriate and safe use of medicines
- The practice had not taken steps to improve in all the areas of lower-than-average performance identified in the national GP patient survey
- Overall governance arrangements were inadequate
- The practice’s culture did not adequately support high-quality sustainable care.
However:
- The practice had a programme of quality improvement activity, and it routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care provided
- There was monitoring of the outcomes of care and treatment, but improvement was required.