A BARROW GP surgery has been told it ‘requires improvement’ following an inspection.

Risedale Surgery, located at the Alfred Barrow Health Centre in Duke Street, was visited by Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors on April 21.

In an inspection report published online, the surgery was given an overall rating of ‘requires improvement’ following the visit.

The surgery was rated ‘good’ in whether services are caring and responsive to people’s needs, but told that it ‘requires improvement’ for whether services are safe, effective and well-led.

Risedale, which provides service to 6,500 patients, was last inspected under its previous provider on June 7, 2016 where it was awarded a score of ‘good’ for all key areas.

A new provider was registered for the surgery in January 2020, prompting a new inspection from the CQC.

Inspectors found that two regulations were breached by the surgery. The provider must ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients, and establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care, said the report.

The report states: “Although we found that most clinical areas of service were delivered safely and there was no evidence of harm to patients, we found that systems and processes in place to manage risk within the practice were not working effectively or as intended.

“We identified a number of areas where risk was not appropriately managed including in relation to DBS checks as part of safe recruitment procedures, medicines management and training.”

The report also states that the practice was unable to demonstrate that any actions had been taken to address the lower than average cervical and breast screening uptake.

It states: “Patient feedback was in line with local and national averages and staff we spoke with worked hard to maintain a kindly and dignified environment for patients that was person centred.”

Inspectors recommended that the provider should implement a strategy to increase uptake of cervical and breast cancer screening uptake to expected targets, evaluate staff awareness around appointments to ensure that patients are seen by the most appropriate professional at the right time, complete required documentation for sharps boxes when commenced, review psychotropic prescribing to ensure patients are taking this medicine appropriately, re-establish a patient participation group and demonstrate that information enabling patients to make complaints is prominently displayed.

Full details of CQC’s findings are in the report which has been published here.