Exclusive Nearly 10,600 patients were registered with a North West London practice in error, Pulse has now learned.
As exclusively revealed last week, the GP Pathfinder Clinics admitted to re-registering former patients in error but up until now the extent of the issue was unknown.
Pulse can also reveal that the practice’s managing partner Dr Jahan Mahmoodi has chosen to step aside from his role as Brent LMC chair while dealing with the issue.
The issue first came to light when GPs in North West London contacted Pulse having noticed the loss of ‘hundreds’ of patients from their practice lists.
GP Pathfinder Clinics admitted that it ‘re-registered’ some patients in error but blamed a third-party contractor and said it ‘would never’ have done so deliberately.
In an update, the practice has now told Pulse that 10,599 patients were mistakenly re-registered. According to the practice, a number of ‘active’ patients were deducted by Primary Care Support England (PCSE) but in trying to retrieve those patients, another 10,599 were also mistakenly re-registered.
It said all of the affected patients had been registered with GP Pathfinder Clinics ‘at some point’ over the past 13 months.
Interim accountable officer Deborah McBeal told Pulse: ‘PCSE deducted a number of active patients from our list.
‘Our clinical leadership was concerned about patient safety and continuity of care, as we were aware some vulnerable patients were affected. We commissioned a third-party contractor to help us understand and overcome this issue.
‘Unfortunately, instead of re-registering only these deducted patients we mistakenly re-registered 10,599 patients who had intentionally moved to an alternative practice.
‘They had all, however, been previously registered with GP Pathfinders at some point over the past 13 months.’
North West London ICB, which held a meeting with the practice at the end of last week concerning the issue, has also issued a new statement to Pulse.
It said it has asked the practice to stop all registrations and instructed them to process any deduction requests within 48 hours of receipt ‘so that patients can be re-registered elsewhere without delays’.
An ICB spokesperson said: ‘NHS North West London recently met with the GP Pathfinder Clinic in north west London as we have been advised of an issue with patient registrations.
‘Our understanding is that patients have unknowingly been registered with this practice. A number of practices have reported that this has caused some confusion to patients and additional workload to re-register patients and re-issue prescriptions.
‘We are treating these concerns with high priority and we are working with the practice, NHS England and other relevant agencies to determine what has happened, the cause and the solutions we can put in place to remedy the issues.
‘At our request the practice in question have ceased all registrations of patients until further notice whilst we work together to establish the facts of what has happened.
‘We recognise the concern this will cause for practices and patients that have been affected. We will be urgently working to resolve the matter.’
Last week, North West London GPs expressed concern at seeing ‘significant number of patients’ being deduced, who were ‘upset and annoyed’ that they have been removed.
They also told Pulse that there are possible patient safety issues with patients who were undergoing urgent care or referrals at their original practice and have suddenly become deregistered.
Some expressed concern that patients may have been confused by the GP Pathfinder Clinics website, thinking they were registering with a separate online option. There were also unsupported accusations of patient data having been accessed ‘via AI’, which GP Pathfinder Clinics has denied.
Although the GP Pathfinders website sees the practice badge itself as a ‘GP online at your fingertips’ and encourages patients to sign up online, its registration page states it is ‘an NHS GP practice’ and registering means it ‘will transfer you to Hazeldene Medical Centre’.
