by Jess Sharp, reporter 

A doctor’s surgery has been placed under special measures after inspectors found that a patient had been given the incorrect dose of a medicine.

Malling Health at Blue Suite in High Street, Rainham has been rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) as a result of its latest inspection.

Run by Malling Health UK, a company that operates 19 services across the country, a recent report published by the CQC has raised concerns with lots of different areas of the surgery.

The annual check revealed that there had been an incident in which a patient had been prescribed the wrong dose of a high-risk medicine that could have caused them harm. Staff failed to report the incident correctly.

Inspectors also discovered that medicines had been stored incorrectly, with there being 22 occasions where the temperature went outside the levels for safe storage. This can damage the drugs and compromise their effectiveness.

A report published by the CQC explained that there had also been times that blood test results were not being recorded as being received and reviewed by a clinician before prescriptions being issued.

Some members of staff had not received basic life support training and alerted assessors to the fact that they had not attended the practical part of that training.

CQC wrote that the practice was unable to demonstrate that all relevant staff had received a DBS check. This is carried out to identify whether a person has a criminal record or is on an official list of people barred from working in roles where they may have contact with children or vulnerable adults.

Chief inspector of general practice for the CQC Steve Field said in the report: “The service will be kept under review and if needed could be escalated to urgent enforcement action.

“If there is not enough improvement we will move to close the service.”

Malling Health at Blue Suite is based inside  Rainham Healthy Living Centre and has around 7,400 patients registered to its service. At the time of the inspection, it did not have a registered manager in post and that had been the case since September of last year.

Inspectors also found that there had been an incident where a delivery of vaccines had to be destroyed because the key to the medicine fridge could not be found to store them correctly.

Staff said that they knew they needed to report it as a significant event but had not done so.

The yearly check looks at services to ensure that they are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.

The Rainham based surgery was found to be inadequate and requiring improvement in all of these areas.

Throughout the inspection, it was also uncovered that GPs had to provide their own equipment for use during home visits. It was not made clear whether or not doctor’s medical kits were checked to make sure everything was working properly.

Staff reported to assessors that clinical waste was stored in yellow storage bins in secure area but it was found that one of those was not locked. A container of cleaning fluid, marked as corrosive was also found next to a fridge in the staff room, which should have been securely stored.

Tracy Rouse, Director of Primary Care Transformation at Medway Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), which is responsible for planning and buying local NHS services, said: “It is our priority to ensure patient care is maintained. The CCG is providing help and support to enable the practice to work through the CQC report and make improvements as soon as possible.”

The surgery will now have until February 2019 to improve in time for their next inspection.

Malling Health at Blue Suite has been contacted for comment