Sunnah Circumcision Clinic

Updated 22 March 2022

Sunnah Circumcision Service at Maryam Centre is an independent health service located in the London borough of Tower Hamlets. The provider is Dr Mohammad Hossain Howlader, a consultant surgeon.

The service provides faith and non-faith based non-therapeutic male circumcision for all age groups, including adults, although the service primarily sees infants and children. The service’s patients are often seen for single treatments and, as such, the service does not have a patient list.

The service carries out circumcisions at the Maryam Centre, which is rented from the East London Mosque, and does not carry out procedures in patients’ homes. The service is situated on the sixth floor of the building with access via a lift or stairs.

The service’s clinical team consists of two doctors and a nurse surgical practitioner. The clinicians are supported by two non-clinical staff members.

Procedures take place from 9am to approximately 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays, dependent on patient demand.

The provider is registered with CQC to provide the regulated activity of ‘Surgical procedures’.

How we inspected this service:

We reviewed information about the service in advance of our inspection visit. This included:

• Data and other information we held about the service;
• Information available on the service’s website.

During the inspection visit we:

• Spoke with the provider consultant surgeon and the two non-clinical staff members;
• Reviewed the service’s records and documentation;
• Spoke with service users.

This was a focused inspection and therefore we only looked at one aspect of the ‘Safe’ key question, relating to checking and recording of patient identification.

Updated 22 March 2022

We carried out an unannounced focused inspection of Sunnah Circumcision Service at Maryam Centre on 5 March 2022, as a result of concerns raised with the CQC about service users not being asked to provide identification.

This report covers our findings in relation to the specific concerns raised with us which we looked at during our inspection visit, and does not change the current ratings held by the service.

Sunnah Circumcision Service at Maryam Centre was last inspected on 9 December 2020 and was rated as good overall and for all key questions.

Sunnah Circumcision Service at Maryam Centre is an independent health service providing faith and non-faith based non-therapeutic male circumcision for all age groups.

Our key findings were:

• The service had a process to check service user identification and verify parental responsibility, however this was not being consistently adhered to by staff.
• Staff we spoke with understood the reasons for asking parents for identification.
• We saw one example in records where nothing had been recorded to demonstrate that the parents’ identification had been checked.
• During the inspection, one of the service users told us they had not been asked for identification.
• Immediately after the inspection, the provider amended the service’s forms to make the recording of checks clearer, and to act as a prompt for the non-clinical staff members.

Although we did not find any breaches of Regulation, the areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Improve systems for checking and recording identification so they are embedded throughout the service.
• Improve the oversight and audit arrangements for monitoring that staff are adhering to the process for checking and recording identification.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care