A new management team will be put in place at Dashwood Medical Centre in Ramsgate from Monday, August 28 (updated time scale) following enforcement action by the Care Quality Commission.
Existing staff will remain at the practice but will be joined by a team from Northdown Surgery, as revealed by The Isle of Thanet News earier this month.
The changes come after the practice was placed in special measures by the CQC last year and a follow up inspection in May found continued breaches.
Dashwood Medical Centre is a 5 GP practice with around 10,000 patients. The practice was issued two notices for breaches and warned to ensure care and treatment was provided in a safe way.
The service was rated Inadequate overall. Individual area ratings were inadequate for safety, require improvement for effective services, Good for caring, requires improvement for responsiveness and Inadequate for how the service is led.
The follow-up inspection found the required improvements had not been made and so enforcement action, which could be appealed, has been taken.
Inspectors found:
- Improvements to the practice’s systems, practices and processes were insufficient and didn’t always keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse.
- The practice had made improvements to systems and processes to help maintain appropriate standards of cleanliness and hygiene. However, some infection prevention and control issues were ongoing and hadn’t been managed in a timely manner.
- Staff didn’t always have access to the information they needed to deliver safe care and treatment.
- Complaints were investigated and responded to in a timely manner but inspectors could not find evidence to show learning from complaints was being shared with staff.
- Improvements had been made to the management of backlogs of laboratory results and outstanding documents that required action. However, management of tasks, and test requests was insufficient.
CQC concerns
Neil Cox, CQC deputy director of operations in the south, said: “When we inspected Dashwood Medical Centre we were concerned for people using the service that leaders hadn’t been able to make the required improvements since our previous inspection. This is despite us telling them in detail in the last report, as well as in warning notices where they needed to improve.
“The practice didn’t have clear systems and processes in place in order to provide effective treatment to people and keep them safe. At our last inspection we found a large backlog of laboratory results and outstanding documents in relation to people’s test results. Whilst there had been some improvements there were still issues identified with the management of test results due to IT issues.
“We found that people weren’t being monitored in line with best practice guidelines. For example, we saw monitoring interventions being missed to check it was still safe for people to receive certain medicines.
“It was also concerning staff weren’t still up to date with all of their essential training, including safeguarding training, and do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (DNACPR) forms weren’t being completed in line with legislation.”
New management
The new management team will focus on making the necessary improvements highlighted in the Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection.
Patients registered at Dashwood Medical Centre do not need to do anything. Phone numbers and how patients contact the medical centre will not change.
Repeat prescriptions will continue to be provided in the same way patients receive them now and the types of services offered at the practice will remain the same.
‘No disruption’
NHS Kent and Medway’s Director of Primary Care Commissioning Sukh Singh said: “We have worked closely with the team at Dashwood Medical Centre to make sure that there is no disruption to patients.
“The new management team will take steps to address the issues identified by the CQC and we will continue to work with the new management team and the CQC to make sure that the necessary improvements are made.”
The new management team – Dr Geevarghese, Dr Peshen, Dr Ricks, Dr Dharmasena and Dr Misra – are GPs based at the Northdown Surgery in Margate.
Dr Geevarghese, lead partner at Northdown practice said: “We have many years of experience in managing GP practices and will also recruit additional staff to oversee the day-to-day running and management of Dashwood Medical Centre.
“We are pleased that we have been able to make sure that Dashwood Medical Centre remains open for patients and look forward to getting to know them.”
NHS bosses say the changes will not impact patient care at Northdown Surgery.
Patients registered with Dashwood Medical Practice who have any questions should email kmicb.gpcontracting@nhs.net.
NHS working on ‘future arrangements’ for Dashwood Medical Centre in Ramsgate as lead GP due to retire
Dashwood surgery in Ramsgate placed in special measures by Care Quality Commission
Help us to continue bringing you Thanet news with a donation towards our running costs https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=YF7BH2EF4UG2N
‘No disruption’
Really, we gave up trying to get an appointment months/years ago. The online form so you may get a phone consult is a joke, NHS is on its knees
5 GPs and around 10,000 patients!? Compared to The Limes in Margate Dashwood is in clover. Haven’t got the GP/patient ratio for The Limes to hand, but it’s appalling. Yet somehow it stumbles on.
I’ve just been up there at 8 o’clock second in the queue got a appointment this morning I was in shock as this has never happened before in all my years there, somebody must of had a kick up the arse
Wasn’t Dr Jigad Maladi the head of Dashwood once? He became head of our local Clinical Commissioning Group. Doesn’t say much for the current system that the surgery is failing so badly.
As far as i am concerned as a patient of Dashwood i cannot complain. Very helpful and caring practice. It makes me so sad to see what CQC have reported. DR Krishna is an incredible doctor along with the rest of the team. Please do not doubt this practice.
Really, the doctor ignores my wife when she asked for help, ive not been able to even get to see a doctor in a few years, eventually got a phone consult, absolutely useless doctors with a ten minute slot, my wife said she was feeling suicidal and his reply was to make another appointment, which you just cant do…
Does he work at neuro in QEQM?
what i dont doubt is my ability to not be able to get an appointment, i gave up trying years ago, only managed 1 telephone consult since ths start of coid, they have too many patients due to our old surgery closing , they cant cope
“Patients registered at Dashwood Medical Centre do not need to do anything. Phone numbers and how patients contact the medical centre will not change.”
So that will be phone calls never being answered and surly staff when you do get through then ?
This is worth repeating. I was a patient there once But Cardwell struck me off after I reported the practice to the CQC! Why? Because he had tried to conceal from me I had 2 life threatening lung diseases by calling it COPD! Chronically Obstructive Pulmonary Disease is a lung condition, not a disease! I had been referred to a consultant and after various tests, she had sent my diagnosis to Cardell. I was given an appointment to see the COPD nurse, and when she disappeared for a moment I sneaked a look at her computer screen! Imagine my horror when I saw an email from the Consultant saying I had 2 life threatening lung diseases, dated 6 weeks earlier! I asked the nurse for a print out of the email and reluctantly she gave me one!
I confronted Cardwell with this evidence, and asked him why wasn’t I informed of the consultants diagnosis? He said they were too busy to have consultants diagnosis explained to patients, WHAAAAAAT! This was sheer arrogance, I am not a piece of meat, or a child, I was in my 70’s at the time, and I have the right to know what illness, or disease I have been diagnosed with!
In 2018 I contacted the CQC who carried out an inspection of the Medical Centre, and Cardwell struck me off as a patient. I contacted a further 18 medical agencies, including NICE who took down their advice about COPD on their website, and replaced it with one that ensures patients are made aware of what lung disease they have, and what treatment they should expect.
If anyone has been told they have COPD, and has not been informed by the Consultant, or GP what lung disease they have, then they are guilty of professional negligence! You have a right to know what lung disease you have, and what treatment you are entitled to!
Nothing whatsoever to do with your anger issues then.
Peter I do not have anger issues thank you, and I don’t see how you read that I do in my piece, which is factual (i still have copies of all my letters and emails) I still hear people say they have COPD and when asked what lung disease they have, they don’t know! This arrogant attitude by doctors bring them into professional disrepute. When I was in practice had someone requested a structural survey of their house for instance, which I carried out, and after a lengthy investigation said to the client Yes, you do have structural failure, that will be £3,000 please, they would rightly have been angry wouldn’t they?
Who?
You are Peter Checksfield arn’t you, you sound like him.
Good lord, disgraceful
As an monitoring organisation, the CQC seem to be as useless as the service has been at Dashwood house. I cannot understand why I can go to a walk-in clinic and see a doctor within 15/20 minutes yet I tried for three days to get an appointment at Dashwood only to be told try again tomorrow. Try again tomorrow I went over to Deal hospital and within 20 minutes of seeing a doctor I received excellent service and was given some antibiotics. The doctor over at Deal told me you should not have let this go on so long, but he said we get a lot of patients from Dashwood house practice. Why can’t the doctors simply be a walk-in? Why do we have to keep trying to make appointments it never used to be like this years ago he’s a doctor’s Doctors have got lazy or the system is not fit for purpose. CQC should trying phoning for an appointment see haw they get on.
CQC is run by the GP’s it will be like marking your own homework.
5 general practitioners can not run a surgery. I thought I was uneducated.
One thing I learnt when I was struck off for informing the CQC about the unprofessional conduct of a GP senior partner was they are self employed, and only have a contract with the NHS! They are not employed by the NHS, and the practice owns the surgeries!