A GP surgery has been warned it will face closure if it does not make improvements within six months.

Wigmore Medical Centre, which cares for 4,500 patients, has been placed in special measures following an announced three-day inspection in April.

The Care Quality Commission visited the Woodside Road site on April 2, 3 and 8.

It received a score of good for being caring but its responsiveness and effectiveness were ranked as requiring improvement while safety and leadership were rated inadequate.

The service was rated as inadequate overall.

Of particular concern was training and checks carried out on staff, one chaperone had not been DBS checked, meaning any previous convictions or concerns would not have been known about, while vaccination checks were not carried out on two of the clinical staff.

Elsewhere insufficient tests had been carried out on medical equipment for use during home visits, while there were no spare defibrillator pads at the practise.

Poor access for patients with mobility issues was flagged up, while there was also no disabled toilets.

The vaccination uptake at the centre was lower than the 90% NHS target although it was not clear by how much.

Chief inspector Dr Rosie Benneyworth said: "I am placing the service in special measures. Services placed in special measures will be inspected again in six months.

"If insufficient improvements have been made such that there remains a rating of Inadequate for any population group, key question or overall, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating the service. This will lead to cancelling their registration or to varying the terms of their registration within six months if they do not improve.

"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."

Deputy managing director at Medway Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) Stuart Jeffery said: “We are aware Wigmore Medical Centre needs to make some improvements. As always, patients are our priority so our head of quality and safety for primary care, together with the CCG, has been working with the practice to offer help and support.

“CCG staff are making regular visits to the practice and we have been assured they are working on improvements. The practice is in the process of developing an action plan to address all of the concerns raised in the CQC’s report and we will continue to monitor the situation.”

The surgery is expected to release a statement later today (Friday).

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