A doctors’ surgery in Mitcham has been placed in special measures after being rated ‘inadequate’.

The Ravensbury Park Medical Centre in Ravensbury Lane, off Morden Road, faced strong criticism in a report compiled by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which ranked the practice as inadequate in being safe, effective, responsive and well-led.

The report, which was based on an inspection carried out on January 11 and published on Thursday, March 30, also rated the medical centre as ‘requires improvement’ in the category of being caring.

Issues raised by the CQC include weaknesses in arrangements to prevent and control the spread of infections and a lack of effective systems to keep patients protected from abuse, for reporting, recording and learning from significant events or from acting upon patient safety alerts.

The report also listed concerns that the way medicines and vaccines were stored was not enough to keep patients safe, and said there were no plans in place for major incidents like a power failure or building damage.

Appropriate recruitment checks on new staff had not been taken, some existing staff were not adequately trained and there was no effective system for handling complaints.

However, the report also noted that patients were treated with compassion, dignity and respect.

A spokeswoman for the practice said: “The Ravensbury Park Medical Centre has completed a substantial number of the actions necessary to meet the requirements outlined in the CQC inspection report, following their visit in January 2017.

“We are working to complete the remaining changes and are doing so on time with the schedule set by the CQC, supported by NHS England and the Merton Clinical Commissioning Group.

“We would like to reassure patients that although the CQC’s inspection found a number of policies and procedures to be unsatisfactory, it did not find any instances of patients having come to harm.

“Patients can book appointments as normal while we work through this process.”

Deputy chief inspector of general practice at CQC, Ursula Gallagher, said: “We are placing Ravensbury Park Medical Centre into special measures. Services placed in special measures will be inspected again within six months.

“The service will be kept under review and if needed could be escalated to urgent enforcement action. Where necessary, another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough improvement we will move to close the service by adopting our proposal to remove this location or cancel the provider’s registration.

“Special measures will give people who use the service the reassurance that the car they get should improve.

“It was encouraging that patients we spoke to were satisfied with the care they received and thought staff were approachable, committed and caring.

“However, they also said that it was sometimes difficult to get an appointment.”

To read the full report, click here.