A GP practice in Harold Wood has been put into special measures.
Oak Road Surgery, also known as Dr Rana Chowdhury on the Care Quality Commission (CQC) website, has been ranked 'inadequate' after its most recent CQC inspection.
In the report published on January 31, the GP surgery was also given the regulator's lowest rating in the 'safe' and 'effective' inspection areas.
The 'caring', 'responsive' and 'well-led' areas are marked as 'good' - however this is still the surgery's score from its previous inspection as these categories were not assessed by the CQC this time around.
This was the first inspection of Oak Road Surgery since 2017, and was sparked by "concerns" about the practice raised to the care watchdog.
After a review of patient records, CQC inspectors found that some were not detailed enough to allow another clinician to take over the care of the patient or to allow for "continuity of care".
The report said: "The review of patient records found some did not include sufficient information to understand the patient’s assessment and management of the patient’s condition, and this may have impacted on a patient’s health."
Separate patient record searches by a GP national professional adviser revealed that clinicians had "not constantly followed evidence-based care and treatment guidelines".
The evidence from these records reviews also showed that the process to ensure the safe prescribing of medicines "was not always effective" - leaving some patients with an experience that "may have been negative", CQC said.
Issues around the management of medicines were identified in 24 records, with the majority of these relating to medicines being given despite no evidence of monitoring.
The CQC report said: "The quality of note taking for medicines reviews were poor and the records were not contemporaneous or accurate enough to account for all the medicines patients were being prescribed concurrently.
"This meant, there was no assurance that medicines were consistently being prescribed safely."
Another area assessed was "safe and effective staffing", which includes induction, recruitment and training.
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Although the practice manager told inspectors that they had started to put systems in place following the announcement of the inspection, the CQC found these were "not fully implemented or developed".
This included the discovery that a job description for a new role was not specific enough to ensure the new staff member worked within their ability.
The Recorder contacted Oak Road Surgery for comment and we were referred to NHS North East London (NHS NEL).
The inspection was carried out on August 7 and 12, 2024, and a spokesperson for NHS North East London said that the surgery has already made "a number of changes" since then.
The spokesperson told the Recorder: "As soon as we became aware of the concerns, we took immediate action to ensure patient safety and began working closely with the practice to put in place a comprehensive action plan to address the issues raised as quickly as possible.
"Since receiving the CQC’s inspection report we have been supporting Dr Chowdhury and his team to ensure they have the specialist knowledge, expertise, and experience in place to make the required improvements while minimising any disruption for patients.
"Our priority is ensuring all patients at Oak Road Surgery have ongoing access to safe, high quality services that meet the high standards they rightly expect."
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