A health watchdog has taken drastic action to protect patients following serious concerns over safety.

The Care Quality Comission (CQC) has ordered a new management team to take over Ramsgate’s Dashwood Medical Centre.

It comes after inspectors plunged the practice – which has 10,000 patients on its books – into special measures last year following an overall inadequate rating.

After a follow-up inspection in May, CQC bosses decided urgent action needs to be taken to protect patients, with a new management team enforced.

During the visit, inspectors did not re-rate the service due to the fact they were only checking on the progress of their warning notices issued in November.

It meant Dashwood maintained its Inadequate rating for safety and leadership, Requires Improvement for being effective and responsive, and Good for caring.

Neil Cox, CQC deputy director of operations in the south, said the findings of this inspection led to concerns for people using the service.

“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,” he said.

“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,” he added.

“We were concerned for people using the service that leaders hadn’t been able to make the required improvements since our previous inspection...”

He added some staff were not being monitored in line with best practice guidelines for example, monitoring interventions were missed to check it was still safe for people to receive certain medicines.

He went on: “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.

“It’s for these reasons we have taken steps to prevent Dashwood Medical Centre from carrying out this regulated activity, which will prevent them from operating.

“This process is still on-going and the provider has the right to appeal.

“NHS Kent and Medway ICB has worked closely with the provider to ensure people registered at the surgery are able to access care there.”

Due to the severity of the concerns found at the latest inspection, the CQC has now taken steps to stop the GP surgery from carrying out regulated activity, which will prevent them from operating.

This process is still ongoing and the provider has the right to appeal.

During their inspection, it was found that 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. However, 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.

Following this, staff at Dashwood Medical Centre will remain at the practice but will be joined by a team from Northdown Surgery who will manage the practice in a bid to improve the service.

new management team will be in place at Dashwood Medical Centre in Ramsgate from Monday, 29 August 2023.

Existing staff will remain at the practice but will be joined by new colleagues.

It means the new management team will focus on making necessary improvements to processes highlighted in a recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection.

Patients registered at Dashwood 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.

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 local 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.”

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.