GP surgery given lowest rating over ‘toxic workplace culture’ from warring doctors

By Joe Coughlan, Local Democracy Reporter

A GP surgery has been criticised for creating a “toxic workplace culture” over two doctors at the surgery being embroiled in an ongoing argument.

Eltham Palace Surgery, based in Eltham Community Hospital in Passey Place, Greenwich, has been rated as “Inadequate” by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in a report published yesterday.

The report detailed a “breakdown in the relationship between the two GP Partners” and a “divisive culture within the staff team at this practice”.

The report found that leaders did not show they had the skills or capacity to run the practice.

Several issues were identified in the report, including patients on high-risk medications and with long-term conditions not being given enough monitoring, and medical records not being accurate or kept up to date.

Antoinette Smith, CQC deputy director of operations in London, said in a statement: “When we inspected Eltham Palace Surgery we were disappointed to find a split in the relationship between the two GP partners had led to serious leadership issues.

“This resulted in leaders overlooking issues impacting people’s safety and allowing a toxic workplace culture to develop.”

Ms Smith said patients had repeatedly complained about not being able to access appointments at the practice when they needed them. She added that leaders at the surgery did not take effective action when staff raised the issue.

Ms Smith said: “Staff told us understaffing also made it difficult to guarantee people access to the services they needed. We found the split between partners had limited recruitment efforts and alienated staff, who told us they felt overworked, stressed, and unable to raise issues.

“This is unacceptable, staff have valuable information to keep people safe and leaders need to act on this when they’re told something is wrong.”

The practice was praised for having an active patient participation group, which reportedly allowed people to give feedback on the practice. A complaints section was also on the practice’s website, but inspectors said they needed guidance from staff to find it.

The report said Eltham Palace Surgery currently has 8,000 patients. The practice was previously rated as ‘Good’ from an inspection in July 2017.

The surgery has been placed in special measures following its latest inspection, and will be re-inspected within six months.

It has also been asked to give monthly updates to the CQC on the action being taken to address the concerns found during the inspection.

Eltham Palace Surgery was approached for comment, but had not responded at the time of publication.

Pictured top: Eltham Community Hospital, where Eltham Palace Surgery is based (Picture: Google Earth)