HARLOW health centre facilities used by Stellar Healthcare have been told to improve by government inspectors, the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Sydenham House Surhery in Monkswick Road, Harlow was inspected on April 20th, 2022.

This location was visited as part of the inspection of locations registered to Stellar Healthcare Limited.

This was not an inspection of the Sydenham House GP Surgery but rooms used by the above company.

It received an overall grade of Requires Improvement.

The full report can be seen by clicking link below.

This just comes a week after Lister House Surgery was rated as “inadequate” by CQC.

YH plans to interview a representative from the West Essex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and/or Stellar Health Care Limited.

https://api.cqc.org.uk/public/v1/reports/6c216343-b0bb-4cf1-a90e-8ff5a94093ec?20220622070053

CQC rated “safe” as Requires improvement because:

• We identified a number of safety concerns that were rectified soon after our inspection. The likelihood of this happening again in the future is low and therefore our concerns for patients using the service, in terms of the quality and safety of clinical care are minor.
• Not all staff had received appropriate levels of safeguard training. Some staff were not aware how to report incidents and near misses.
• We found gaps in the provision of equipment to deal with medical emergencies at one location.
• Safeguarding and safety training appropriate to staff roles required strengthening. During the inspection staff we spoke to knew how to identify and report concerns. Staff who acted as chaperones were trained for the role and had receiveda DBS check. However, on the day of the inspection we identified that training had expired for one member of staff and that not all staff had the level of training in line with national guidance. The provider informed us after the inspection that training had been completed before any additional shifts were scheduled.
• We found gaps in providing required equipment to deal with medical emergencies at one location. The service did not have sufficient arrangements in place to check the working status of the defibrillator, and when tested the defibrillator battery pack did not work. The service did not have a replacement battery pack on site. The service took immediate action after the inspection and had ordered a battery pack to mitigate the risk and provided us with evidence that this had been actioned.
• Staff told us there was no oxygen on site. Oxygen is required as a minimum suggested equipment to support Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in primary care settings. The decision to remove oxygen from the site had been taken during the COVID-19 pandemic. The service had not undertaken a risk assessment to review this decision when the service provision had altered at the location. The service took immediate action to ensure oxygen was available and had an action plan going forward to mitigate future risks.
• When there were changes to services or staff the service assessed and monitored the impact on safety.
• We saw a limited range of safety risk assessment to ensure a safe working environment.
• Procedures to make safe recruitment decisions required strengthening.

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We rated “effective” as Good because:

• The service reviewed and monitored care and treatment to ensure it provided effective services.
• The provider had systems to keep clinicians up to date with current evidence based practice.
• Although there was evidence of clinical audits the practice would benefit from undertaken medicine audits in order todemonstrate effective and safe prescribing.
• There was limited evidence that the service assured the competence of staff employed in additional roles.
• The system for obtaining consent required improvement.