DOCTORS at The Grange Surgery in Petersfield have moved to reassure patients that their safety is at the top of the practice’s agenda following a report by healthcare watchdogs.

The Care Quality Commission rated the surgery ‘inadequate’ overall after an inspection on October 16 last year.

It was rated ‘good’ in three of five categories – providing caring, responsive and effective services – but ‘inadequate’ in providing safe and well-led services.

GP partners Dr Kathryn Bannell and Dr Penny Mileham said in a joint statement: “We are obviously very disappointed by our overall rating, which we have been informed is due to ongoing issues.

“We regard all identified areas as being equally important for us to address and we have no intention of trying to downplay their importance.

“We would like to strongly reassure our 7,651 patients that we will take steps to address every issue of concern identified – indeed we have already been back in touch with the Care Quality Commission to update them on progress.

“We are delighted that we were rated ‘good’ for having caring, responsive and effective services, and these are the areas which we think the vast majority of our patients associate with us.

“We are also pleased that the area of effective services – deemed as requiring improvement at the previous inspection – is now rated as good. This is partly as a result of the improvements that we have made to our internal training.

“This gives us confidence in our ability to address any of the identified shortcomings.

“The category regarding well-led services really relates to our management structure, which has changed in the last year because of staff recruitment issues.

“These new staff and new arrangements are in the process of bedding in – but this is an internal issue rather than something that directly affects our patients and we have implemented arrangements to better identify, manage and mitigate risks.

“The category around ‘safe’ services is not about our services being unsafe, but relates mainly to what the inspectors cited as ‘continued issues and an inability to demonstrate comprehensive learning and improvement when things went wrong’.

“Again we need to – and we will – comprehensively address each of these issues.”

This latest inspection followed one on October 9, 2018, which found breaches of regulations and rated the practice as ‘requires improvement.’

In her report after the October 2019 inspection, inspector Dr Rosie Benneyworth said she was placing the surgery in special measures.

Although she said this will “give people who use the service the reassurance that the care they get should improve”, it also means the practice has to sort out the problems quickly, as another inspection will be held within six months.

She also recommended that the practice establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.

She also said the practice must ensure fit and proper persons are employed, review the process for identifying carers within the practice with a view to increasing the proportion of carers identified, and include information for patients on escalating concerns to the ombudsman when responding to complaints.

Dr Mileham added: “There is much we are pleased with in the report.

“The inspectors recognised that staff treat patients with kindness, respect and compassion and described high standards of care.

“We clearly have further progress to make and we continue to strive to offer the best possible services we can.

“We are confident that the necessary improvements will be made and we thank our patients for their support.”