A doctor's surgery in Ashby has been placed in special measures after a report from health watchdog officials declared it 'inadequate'.

Staff from The Surgery, in Ashby, have now reassured patients that their services are safe and well led inspectors from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said it was inadequate after visiting on June 29.

The CQC monitors, inspects and regulates health-based services, from care homes to pharmacies to ensure they meet the standards of care that are expected of them and provides venues with feedback, in terms of how effective and safe they are performing.

The Surgery, on North Street, has been given a rating of inadequate, which means there are serious issues that need resolving.

The practice has now been placed into special measures and will be inspected again within the next six months.

The report says: "Patients were at risk of harm because some systems and processes in place were not effective to keep them safe.

"For example, patient safety alerts, infection control, monitoring of patients on high risk medicines, monitoring of the cold chain, patient group directives, staff files and complaints."

One section of the report, 'are services safe?' was rated as inadequate, the lowest rating on the scale.

Highlighted are concerns that patients are being put at risk because some of the systems employed by the surgery were not completely effective.

"The practice did not have effective systems in place to safeguard service users from abuse and improper treatment," The report continued.

"Most risks to patients were assessed but not well managed. For example, general health and safety, legionella and fire safety."

According to the report, the training of staff was not monitored in anyway, as there was not a clear record of when and how often members of the team were sent on courses.

It detailed that many of the staff members were not aware of their exact staff role and responsibilities and the practice did not have an active complaints system in place.

Complaints were not documented, so this made it unclear whether any actions were made on the back of them or if they had been shared with staff.

The report concluded: "Although the practice was positive about future plans, we found a lack of leadership and governance relating to the overall management of the service."

Since the report, the team at the practice has already created a plan of action, having worked with North West Leicestershire Clinical Commissioning Group.

Dr David Dawes, from The Surgery, said it understand that patients may be worried when they read the results of the report.

Dr Dawes said: "We appreciate that our patients may be worried, but we want to assure them that our response to the inspection was immediate and we are now working hard to ensure that we respond to each and every area raised as a concern to ensure that we are providing safe, effective, responsive, well-led and caring services."

He said safeguarding had been an important issue which the surgery adamantly wanted to uphold and had sought to identify children and adults who were at risk.

Further staff training was being identified and organised to make sure every member of staff was aware of their role and how to fill it effectively, he added.

Individual systems were now also being set up to help any patient with a chronic disease to be embedded into day-to-day work to help handle safety risks. Fire safety has also been reviewed at the practice and put into place for regular testing of the alarm system, he said.

Dr Dawes added: "Our patients are our key focus and we were pleased that the CQC picked up on areas of good performance with patients expressing high levels of satisfaction about all aspects of the care and treatment they received.

"Patients also told inspectors that the practice offered an excellent service and staff were helpful, caring and treated them with dignity and respect.

"They also said that staff responded compassionately when they needed help and provided support when required. However, a key focus for our practice will be to develop a stronger accountable leadership structure and good governance relating to the overall management of the service, particularly in response to safety.

"The most important people are our patients and we will be working with representatives of our patient participation group to get more patient insights and continue to undertake our own patient surveys. This work will support us to provide excellence in all areas of patient care."

The full CQC inspection report for The Surgery, Ashby is available online and can be viewed at http://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/new_reports/AAAG5490.pdf .