Dr Felix Balaratnam

Updated 31 October 2022

Dr Felix Balaratnam (Gillmans Road Surgery) is situated in purpose-built accommodation in a residential area of Orpington, in the London Borough of Bromley. South East London Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) are responsible for commissioning health services for the locality.

The practice has approximately 4000 registered patients. The practice age distribution differs from the national average. The practice has a larger than average patient population for the 0-19 year age group and a lower than average population over 50 years. The surgery is based in an area with a deprivation score of 4 (with 1 being the most deprives and 10 being the lease deprived).

The practice is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) as an individual provider. Services are provided from one location at 1 Gillmans Road, Orpington, Kent, BR5 4LA. Services are delivered under a General Medical Services (GMS) contract. The practice is registered with the CQC to provide the regulated activities of family planning; treatment of disease, disorder or injury; and diagnostic and screening procedures. Clinical services are provided by the lead GP (male) and two part-time practice nurses. There is a practice manager, a part-time administrator and two part-time reception staff.

Patients needing urgent care out of normal working hours are advised to contact the NHS 111 service which directs patients to a local contracted out of hours service or the local Accident and Emergency department, depending on the patient’s medical urgency.

Updated 31 October 2022

We previously carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr Felix Balaratnam in October 2019 as part of our inspection programme. We rated the practice as Good overall. We rated the practice Good for providing effective, caring, responsive and well led services and Requires Improvement for providing a safe service. You can read the full report by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Dr Felix Balaratnam on our website (www.cqc.org.uk).

We were mindful of the impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the Covid-19 Pandemic when considering what type of inspection was necessary and proportionate, this was therefore a desk-based inspection. On 6 October 2022, we carried out a desk-based review to confirm that the practice had carried out improvement plans to their service.

We found that the practice had put measures in place for ongoing improvement. The practice is now rated Good for providing safe services.

We based our judgement on the quality of care at the service on a combination of:

• What we found when we reviewed the information sent to us by the provider; and
• Information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services.

We have rated safe as Good because:

• Systems have been put in place to ensure the monitoring of all patients on high risk medicines;
• Systems have been put in place to standardise the practice referral procedures.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services