A HEALTH centre has been told it must improve in a report from watchdogs.

The Kelvedon and Feering Health Centre was given the rating when CQC inspectors visited the establishment last month.

The provider is registered with the CQC to deliver procedures such as diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services and treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures.

The practice is situated within the Mid Essex Clinical Commissioning Group and delivers services to a patient population of about 7,400.

The inspection included staff interviews and questionnaires, completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system and a short site visit, amongst others.

In the report, which has just been published, the inspectors said they found all areas required improvement including safety, effectiveness, level of care, responsiveness and leadership of the services.

The report established a safeguarding policy was in place, however, it said all staff inspectors communicated with were not aware of what the process was.

It also added multi-disciplinary team meetings had not taken place, but there were plans to schedule these.

Despite an improved system recently being implemented to help with recruitment checks, the report found that these checks had not always been carried out in accordance with regulations.

The report also went into detail about the centre’s procedures and meetings.

It said: “Cervical screening uptake was below the England average. We saw limited evidence that the practice had carried out any clinical quality improvement activity.

“There were areas of the National GP survey data where the practice had performed below local and national averages.

“Vulnerable adults were discussed at regular frailty meetings, but there was no forum to discuss vulnerable children. During the inspection we were told that there was a plan to set these up.”

It also added that when speaking with staff, they felt that although leaders were always visible, they didn’t feel they were always approachable.

The report did however also recognise there had been a very recent restructure and therefore there had not been any evaluation of its effectiveness to address the issues at the practice.

The Health Centre was contacted by the Gazette but did not respond at the time of going to press.