The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has dropped the rating for Dr Isam Saleh, also known as Wenlock Surgery, from good to inadequate following an inspection in June.
This inspection was prompted by concerns raised to the CQC around safety and governance at the practice.
As well as dropping from good to inadequate overall, the practice has also dropped from good to inadequate for being safe, effective, and well-led. It’s dropped from good to requires improvement for being responsive. This inspection didn’t examine how caring the practice was, so this remains rated good.
CQC are also taking further regulatory action to protect people and will report on this when legally able to do so.
Gill Hodgson-Reilly, CQC deputy director of operations in the east of England, said:
“When we inspected Wenlock Surgery, we were disappointed to find leaders lacked oversight of many issues impacting people’s safety and quality of care, and weren’t acting to improve the service.
“The practice was visibly dirty; for example, inspectors found a dirty used instrument on the floor of a clinic room. We also saw people cared for using medications that were significantly out of date and found safety risks such as fire extinguishers locked away without keys nearby.
“Additionally, inspectors found leaders didn’t supervise or support staff enough to make sure they could meet people’s needs, and we didn’t see evidence that new staff were always given inductions. There also weren’t always enough staff to see people in a timely way.
“We saw no evidence that leaders learned from complaints when they received them, and they’d failed to identify the issues we found through their own monitoring.
“We’ve shared our concerns with the provider and will monitor the service closely to ensure people are kept safe in future. We’re also taking further regulatory action which we’ll report on when we’re legally able to do so.”
Inspectors also found:
- People weren’t always protected from risks of abuse or harm as the practice lacked effective safeguarding processes
- Leaders didn’t make sure people with long term conditions were getting the monitoring they needed to ensure their safety
- People’s medications weren’t always stored securely
- People’s data wasn’t always stored securely. For example, many records with sensitive identifying information were found in a kitchen cupboard, dating as far back as 2009
- The service didn’t always seek out people’s feedback. Leaders weren’t currently surveying staff or the people being cared for, and hadn’t resumed patient participation group meetings after the COVID-19 pandemic.