Lathom Road Medical Centre

Updated 19 January 2023

Lathom Road Medical Centre is located in London at: 2a Lathom Road, East Ham, London, E6 2DU. The practice has good transport links and is within easy reach of bus and train services providing direct access into Central London.

There is a clinical team of three GP partners; one long-term sessional locum/salaried GP; a locum practice nurse and two healthcare assistants (HCAs). Clinical staff are supported at the practice by a practice manager and a team of reception and administration staff.

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services and treatment of disease, disorder or injury and family planning.

The practice reception is open Monday-Friday between 8am-6:30pm, on Saturdays between 8.00am-12.30pm and appointments are available between these times. Patients may book appointments online, by telephone or in person.

The practice is situated within the North East London Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of 8,154 (as of 01 July 2022). This is part of a contract held with NHS England. They are part of a wider network of GP practices in NE2 Primary Care Network.

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the fourth lowest decile (four of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others. Lathom Road Medical Centre is within the fourth decile.

According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 62.3 % Asian, 19.3% White, 11.5% Black, 3.2% Mixed, and 3.7% Other.

Due to the enhanced infection prevention and control measures put in place since the pandemic and in line with the national guidance, most GP appointments were telephone consultations. If a GP or clinician needs to see a patient on a face-to-face basis, an appropriate appointment is offered.

Extended access and out of hours services are provided locally by Newham GP Cooperative, where late evening and weekend appointments are available.

Updated 19 January 2023

We carried out an announced full comprehensive inspection on 04 January 2023.

The practice was inspected on 28 July 2022 to follow-up on enforcement actions we had taken and found the provider had taken actions to address the breaches we had previously found during our inspection on 24 and 26 May 2022. Following this inspection, the practice was rated inadequate overall and in the key questions for safe and well-led and requires improvement for providing effective services. We issued warning notices for breaches of Regulation 12 (Safe care and treatment) and Regulation 17 (Good governance) and the service was placed into special measures for six months from 03 July 2022.

Previously, we carried out announced inspections at Lathom Road Medical Centre in 2016 and 2017. In 2016, the practice was rated good overall, requires improvement in the key question for safe and good for the key questions for effective, well-led, responsive and caring and patient population groups. In 2017, we followed up the previous requires improvement rating for the key question of safe and subsequently rated this as good.

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Lathom Road Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

We reviewed the ratings awarded to this practice at this inspection.

Why we carried out this inspection

This inspection was a comprehensive inspection and included an on-site visit, to follow-up on special measures implemented following our inspection on 24 and 26 May 2022.

How we carried out the inspection

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system (this was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements).
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A short site visit.

Our findings

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

• what we found when we inspected
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We found that:

We have rated this practice as good overall.

We rated the practice as good for providing safe services because:

• The provider had clear systems and processes to keep patients safe.
• The provider had reliable systems and processes to keep patients safeguarded from abuse.
• The provider had a safe system in place to manage safeguarding training for staff.
• The provider had a safe system in place to monitor and manage recruitment, including disclosure and barring checks (DBS).
• The provider had appropriate systems in place to safely manage high-risk medicines and medicines that require additional monitoring.
• The provider operated a safe system regarding the cold chain for vaccines and medicines that require refrigeration.
• The provider had a safe effective system in place to manage patient safety alerts.
• The provider operated a safe system regarding infection prevention and control, this included staff immunisations and certified immunity.
• The provider had a safe effective system in place to safely manage emergency medicines.
• The provider had reliable systems in place to manage the practice premises safely.
• There was a failsafe process in place to follow-up female patients who have undertaken cervical screening.
• The provider had a safe effective system in place to manage significant events.

We rated the practice as good for providing effective services because:

• Clinical care was delivered consistently in line with national guidance.
• There was monitoring of the outcomes of care and treatment.
• The provider could demonstrate that staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to carry out their roles.
• The provider could demonstrate they were taking action to drive quality improvement regarding performance data.

We rated the practice as good for providing caring services because:

• There was evidence that staff treated patients with kindness, care and compassion.
• There was evidence the provider had taken action to improve patient experience at the practice in response to feedback from the patient participation group.
• The practice carried out patient surveys and patient feedback exercises.

We rated the practice as good for providing responsive services because:

• Waiting times, delays and cancellations were minimal and managed appropriately.
• Patients reported that the appointment system was easy to use.
• Referrals and transfers to other services were undertaken in a timely way. For example, staff proactively followed up with secondary care, for patients whose appointments have been delayed by the pandemic.
• Patient satisfaction response scores in the national GP Patient Survey were in line with local and national averages.

We rated the practice as good for providing well-led services because:

• Leaders could demonstrate they had the capacity and skills to deliver high quality, sustainable care.
• The practice culture effectively supported high quality sustainable care.
• The overall governance arrangements were effective.
• The practice had clear and effective processes for managing risks, issues and performance.
• The practice could demonstrate they always acted on appropriate and accurate information.
• We saw evidence of systems and processes for learning, continuous improvement and innovation.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Continue to drive quality improvement, including for achievement rates for childhood immunisations and cervical screening.

I am taking this service out of special measures. This recognises the significant improvements made to the quality of care provided by this service.

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