A GP practice led by a Havering NHS commissioning boss has been placed in special measures after a damning Care Quality Commission report.

The practice is one of two at Rush Green Medical Centre in Dagenham Road.

The service run by Dr Maurice Sanomi and Dr Bunmi Olajide, which has approximately 4,787 patients, was rated Inadequate on a number of standards including safety by the CQC inspection report.

It suggests a continued decline in standards of care at the practice, which was last rated Requires Improvement" at a previous inspection in July 2018.

Safety problems the CQC found included "gaps in recruitment checks" such as "checks of professional registration" and DBS checks.

Inspectors also noted inadequate fire and health and safety procedures, a non-clinical staff member seen authorising repeat prescriptions, and a lack of evidence available for safe prescriptions of high-risk medicines.

The quality of leadership was also rated Inadequate. The report suggests that management did not "demonstrate that they had the capacity and skills to deliver high quality sustainable care."

Dr Sanomi, who is the clinical director for Havering Clinical Commissioning Group, said: "We do our best here to provide high quality care. The issues highlighted in the report tend to be admin and processes."

"You also have to quantify some of issues. For example, we had a fire safety assessment in September which we did not get the report back until October, just before the CQC came. We therefore did not have time to enact what they recommended.

"With respect to the DBS checks, we employed a new member of staff who had a DBS check by a previous employer six months before which we assumed would be fine. But it wasn't.

"Add all these small things together and it looks bad."

Care quality at the practice was rated Good overall. The inspectors praised how "staff treated patients with kindness, respect and compassion."

But the practice is now in special measures, meaning it will be inspected again within six months and if no improvement is made it runs the risk of being closed down.

Dr Sanomi said there were many areas that needed improvement, but said he was "confident" these improvements would be made by the next inspection.

He added: "We are channeling all our energy to make things better. We are doing our best to address the problems - a lot have already been addressed."

A second surgery - run by Dr Poologanathan - in the same building is not part of the report.