THE Barcroft Practice in Amesbury has been told it must improve by a healthcare watchdog.

Inspectors said safety policies were “regularly reviewed” and “communicated to staff” and that clinical staff received up-to-date safeguarding and safety training.

But inspectors said the practice could not show that non-clinical staff had received safeguarding training.

The report also said it could not show that regular fire evacuation drills had not been carried out and the fire log book was not always kept up-to-date.

Facilities and equipment were “safe” and equipment was “maintained”.

On the day of inspection the practice did not have a business continuity (or disaster) plan in place, which was in the process of being developed and “nearly complete”.

Inspectors said there was a system for recording and acting on significant events and incidents but a policy to give staff guidance following these events has only recently been put in place.

The report said in 2017 the practice recorded three significant events, compared to 25 in 2016, adding: “The practice had not carried out a review of significant events to identify themes, nor had they considered if there was a reason for the decline in the number of significant events recorded.”

Lessons learned were shared with some staff but there was no system in place to ensure this information was shared with everyone who needed it.

The report praised the “good outcomes” for patients and areas of “outstanding practice” including the weekly ophthalmology and dermatology clinics. Patients were treated with “kindness, respect and compassion”

Inspectors said the practice did not ensure staff received appropriate support, training, and supervision. But there was a “focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels within the practice”.

It was given an overall rating of “requires improvement” by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) because of poor safety and leadership, but was rated good for how effective and caring it was and outstanding for being responsive to people’s needs.

A spokesman for the practice said: “We were congratulated by the CQC inspectors on our high patient satisfaction.

“We are being proactive in looking at ways of improving the administrative processes that were raised as areas to improve.”