An 'inadequate' private GP surgery in Romford has been visited by inspectors to judge its progress after being served with warning notices.

BG Medical Clinic, in North Street, was visited by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) on July 4. The service had previously been suspended for around four months from January and is in special measures.

Inspection history

After an inspection on January 19, the practice was issued an "urgent enforcement notice" that was continued after a follow-up visit on March 6.

The practice, run by Dr Andrean Damyanov, was allowed to re-open after a third inspection on May 2. 

The ‘unrated’ inspection in July was said to be carried out to review improvements made by the practice regarding the warning notices issued to them by CQC.

Recent findings

The findings were published in a report on September 21 which revealed that the medical service provider still has several shortcomings, even though inspectors found some progress had been made.

They said the practice still could not demonstrate that it operated a “failsafe system” for urgent referrals, or that they had a safe system in place to manage staff immunisations.

Seven out of eight clinical and two non-clinical staff records showed that they did not “have evidence of immunisation for diphtheria, tetanus and polio”.

The report identified gaps in staff training, especially regarding ante-natal ultrasound scanning, and in the provider’s supervision for non-medical staff.

The practice, the report claimed, could not show that it had an “effective system” to manage patients’ complaints.

It also highlighted that the service had made “insufficient improvements” to their systems to “keep people safe and safeguard them from abuse”.

Inspectors found that the provider had not updated their safeguarding policy for children and vulnerable adults to reflect national guidelines for staff regarding female genital mutilation (FGM).

They gave the example of the legal requirement for reporting FGM and of the necessity to complete a safeguarding assessment for children whose mothers may have been subjected to FGM.

The report claimed that four out of eight clinical staff had not completed the relevant level for child safeguarding training.

While the provider, inspectors said, had started creating an Excel sheet to register patients with safeguarding concerns, none had been identified to date.

“Continuing concerns” were still noted regarding the practice’s cleaning systems to mitigate the risk of healthcare-acquired infection.

The practice “did not comply with the national colour-coding scheme for all cleaning equipment and materials” which is widely applied throughout GPs to reduce cross-contamination.

'Evidence of improvement'

Inspectors believed that the provider had made some improvements in providing safe services. It now managed specific staff training regarding ultrasound scanning for cardiology and general surgery purposes, they wrote.

The leader, the report said, could show that they have the capacity and skills to deliver quality, sustainable care and overall governance arrangements had been improved in some areas.

It added: “We saw evidence of some systems and processes for learning and improvement.”

The provider for example had told the inspectors that they had scanned on thousands of patient records onto their clinical IT system.

The Recorder contacted the practice for their comments about the latest findings, but no response was received.

The detailed report from the July inspection can be accessed on this link: https://www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-7119007186  .