MEDICAL care at Barrow's hospital urgently requires improvement, the health watchdog has said.

The Care Quality Commission said the standard of care being provided at Furness General Hospital had worsened since its previous inspection.

Following a 'focused' inspection carried out earlier this year, medical care now 'requires improvement' having previously been rated 'good'.

READ MORE: Man charged with 11 child sex offences

It follows a series of reports over the past 18 months criticising services at the hospital, including a CQC inspection that found the hospital as a whole required improvement.

A recent inspection was carried out as part of a look into emergency and urgent care services across Lancashire and south Cumbria.

While the inspectors praised several aspects of care at the hospital, they said there were key issues with prescribing medicines and staffing.

A report published on the inspection said: "The service did not always follow best practice when prescribing, giving and storing medicines.

"The services did not have enough medical staff with the right qualifications, skills, training and experience to be compliant with national guidance.

READ MORE: Watch hilarious Love Island parody announcing new Barrow signing

"However, due to consultants working overtime and flexibility of other grades of medical staff, patients were kept safe from avoidable harm and there were sufficient staff to provide the right care and treatment."

Inspectors found that services 'generally' had enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe and praised medics for treating patients with 'compassion and kindness'.

Looking across the region, the CQC found work is needed to reduce pressure on urgent and emergency care services.

A series of coordinated inspections took place throughout March and April.

Inspections also included the North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust including NHS 111 and 999, mental health teams and, some GP surgeries.

Across a new health system covering Lancshire and south Cumbria, inspectors found the NHS1 11 service was experiencing significant staffing challenges and there were 'significant' delays for people accessing care and treatment in emergency departments.

Discharge was not always well planned, insecpted said. affecting capacity in social care services.

There were long handovers at emergency departments involving patients brought in in ambulances.

Ann Ford, CQC's network director, said: “During our inspections throughout Lancashire and South Cumbria, we found increasing demand on urgent care services. Although feedback was mostly positive about these services, some patients were attending urgent care instead of accessing their GP.

"It was concerning that people calling 999 for an ambulance experienced significant delays, and once they arrived at hospital there were delays in relation to handovers from the ambulance crews to hospital although the length of delays varied from hospital to hospital. Delays meant that ambulance crews were experiencing difficulties in responding to other calls in a timely manner.

“We saw significant delays for people accessing care and treatment in emergency departments. There were delays in triage and initial treatment which put people at risk of harm. We also found delays with people being discharged from hospital which had an impact on patient flow across services in the area."

READ MORE: How does Cumbria compare with the price of fuel in the north?

She added: “It’s important that local health and social care leaders work together to ease the pressure on staff and emergency services, so people receive timely care which is right for them.”

The trust that runs FGH was contacted for comment but did not supply one in time for publication.