Concern over safe care at GPs' practice

Thorpe Hesley Practice, on Sough Hall Lane, was registered with the Care Quality Commission last May.

The watchdog recently concluded it “requires improvement” in two of five inspection areas.

A visit in December, the results of which were published last week, found that the service was failing to meet required safety or leadership standards.

Inspectors also rated how the surgery cared for children, elderly people, those with long-term health conditions and those with poor mental health.

For all of these vulnerable groups, inspectors found that care provided by the surgery “requires improvement”.

The CQC found that “risk management and recruitment procedures were not adequately developed and implemented”.

Background checks on new staff were not fully completed and one nurse was found not to be properly insured.

Infection control policies were in place, but not properly documented, inspectors found.

The site did not have a full stock of emergency medicines and one clinical staff member had not been trained to use a defibrillator, they added.

The report said leadership of the practice could be improved, as “management oversight and monitoring of risk, staff training and recruitment procedures were not adequate”.

Dr Jason Page said on behalf of the surgery: “We welcome the CQC report and are making efforts to follow their recommendations.

“On the day the CQC attended we did not have all the certificates of training for nursing staff on file.

“We now have all that documentation and all clinical staff have an annual appraisal where training issues are discussed.

“They wanted us to have some extra emergency medicines - these are being obtained from a local pharmacy.

“We are, therefore, confident that the practice is safe and we are taking further measures to improve leadership by asking an experienced practice manager to review the practice, with help from Rotherham CCG.”