INSPECTORS from a health watchdog have told a university doctor’s surgery to take steps to improve patient safety.

The Care Quality Commission rated the University Health Service, based at Southampton University, good.

Although it was judged good in being effective, caring, responsive and well led, inspectors have told surgery bosses it needs safety improvements.

The inspector said staff understood their responsibilities to raise concerns and to report incidents or near misses.

But when things went wrong, it said reviews and investigations were not thorough enough and lessons learned were not communicated widely enough to support improvement.

It said: “Although some risks to patients who used services were assessed, the systems and processes to address these risks were not implemented well enough to ensure patients were kept safe.

“Areas of concern included recruitment checks, infection control and emergency medicine management.”

The CQC report said the surgery must now ensure emergency medicines are available, fit for purpose and are within the expiry date and ensure staff recruitment checks are completed in full.

It should also identify, manage and monitor effective infection prevention and control systems, carry out staff appraisals in a timely manner and ensure practice policies are up to date.

The surgery, based on the university’s Highfield campus, was also rated good across the board among different aspects of the population including older people, children and people with long term conditions.