Dr K Manivannan & Dr B Gurung Also known as Thames Avenue Surgery

Updated 21 June 2023

The registered provider is Dr K Manivannan & Dr B Gurung.

Dr K Manivannan & Dr B Gurung is located at 2 Thames Avenue, Rainham, Gillingham, Kent, ME8 9BW. The practice is situated within the NHS Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB) and has a general medical services contract with NHS England for delivering primary care services to the local community.

As part of our inspection we visited Dr K Manivannan & Dr B Gurung, 2 Thames Avenue, Rainham, Gillingham, Kent, ME8 9BW, where the provider delivers registered activities.

Dr K Manivannan & Dr B Gurung has a registered patient population of approximately 5,840 patients. The practice is located in an area with a lower than average deprivation score.

There are arrangements with other providers to deliver services to patients outside of the practice’s working hours.

The practice staff consists of 2 GP Partners, a practice manager, 4 practice nurses, an assistant practitioner, a healthcare assistant and an information technology manager, as well as reception and administration staff. The practice also employs locum GPs via an agency when required.

Dr K Manivannan & Dr B Gurung is registered with the CQC to deliver the following regulated activities: diagnostic and screening procedures; family planning; maternity and midwifery services; treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

Updated 21 June 2023

We carried out an announced focussed inspection at Dr K Manivannan & Dr B Gurung on 9 May 2023. The overall rating for the practice is good.

The ratings for each key question are:

Safe – good.

Effective – good.

Caring – good.

Responsive – good.

Well-led – good.

Following our inspection on 20 May 2022, the practice was rated good overall and for providing effective, caring, responsive and well-led services. The practice was rated as requires improvement for providing safe services. A requirement notice was issued for breaches of regulation found at this inspection.

The full reports for the May 2022 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Dr K Manivannan & Dr B Gurung on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Why we carried out this inspection:

We carried out this inspection to follow up on breaches of regulation from our previous inspection.

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:

• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A site visit.
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.

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.
• Information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

The practice remains rated as Good overall.

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

• The provider had made improvements to the practice’s systems, practices and processes to help keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse.
• The provider had taken action and made improvements to systems and processes to help maintain appropriate standards of cleanliness and hygiene.
• Improvements had been made to the way risks to patients, staff and visitors were assessed, monitored and managed.
• The provider had made improvements to the arrangements for managing medicines that helped keep patients safe.

Other findings:

• The provider had revised practice systems to help ensure that all reviews of patients with long-term conditions continued to follow relevant best practice guidance.
• Action taken by the provider had resulted in uptake of childhood immunisations improving to meet the 90% minimum in 4 out of 5 indicators and meet the World Health Organisation (WHO) minimum of 95% in the remaining indicator.
• Ombudsban details were now being included in all replies to complaints.
• The provider continued to deliver care and treatment in a way that was accessible to patients.

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

• Revise medicines management to help ensure action taken when the temperature of designated medicines refrigerators is recorded as being outside of acceptable limits (of between 2 and 8 degrees centigrade) is clearly recorded.
• Continue with plans to carry out monthly searches of the practice computer system to help ensure all staff are complying with all relevant safety alerts.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

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

Please refer to the detailed report and the evidence tables for further information.