Archived: Dr Sibani Basu Also known as St Thomas Medical Centre

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

Dr S Basu has a practice population of approximately 1360 patients who live in Dudley, Tividale and Sandwell areas.

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr Basu also known as St Thomas Medical Centre on 21 January 2015 to explore the standards of care and treatments patients received.

We have rated each section of our findings for each key area. The overall rating was requires improvement. This was because improvements were required for how safe, effective, responsive and well led the service was. The service was rated as good for caring for the population it served.

Our key findings were as follows:

• We found that patients were treated with respect and their privacy and dignity were maintained. Most patients informed us they were satisfied with the care they received. Patients we spoke with told us they were able to make informed decisions about their care and treatment.

• There were systems in place for ensuring patients received appropriate treatments but patients experienced difficulties in making appointments when they felt they needed to. The provider was failing to carry out comprehensive health checks of patients who had a learning disability.

• Comprehensive clinical audits were not being carried out that resulted in improvements in patient care.

• We found that the practice was visibly clean. Patients who we spoke with were satisfied with the standards of hygiene at the practice. However, there was no formal system in place for protecting patients from risks of unecessary infections.

• Effective systems were in place for reporting safety incidents. Significant events were investigated and where possible improvements made to prevent similar occurrences.

• Documentation that demonstrated staff provided safe care was not in place. Oxygen was not available to enable practice staff to effectively deal with medical emergencies.

However, there were also areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

Importantly, the provider must:

• Implement infection prevention and control audits to ensure that risks of infections are minimised.
• Ensure that all staff annual appraisals to monitor their performance and training needs are recorded and retained within the practice. Develop a procedure for recording the continued registration of nurses with their relevant professional body to evidence they are working legally.
• The provider must carry out risk assessments for fire safety and for areas of the premises.
• The provider must carry out comprehensive health checks of patients who had a learning disability.

In addition the provider should:

• Review the appointments system made available to ensure it meets patients needs.
• Retain all relevant recruitment documentation and recordings from meetings held within the practice so that it is accessible and can be shared appropriately.
• Engage with patients by carrying out annual surveys to gather feedback on the quality of the service provided and respond to them in order to make improvements in service delivery.
• The practice should ensure that clinical audit cycles are completed in order to demonstrate improved outcomes for patients.
• Have oxygen available for immediate use in emergency medical situations.
• The provider should hold a register of people who had carer responsibilities to enable clinical staff to offer them support or signpost them to relevant services.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice