A doctor who put patient safety at risk by not keeping patient records or prescriptions up-to-date and kept out-of-date medicine, as been stopped from working at his practice.

Inspectors at the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have taken action to protect the safety and welfare of patients of Dr Stephen Lawrence who used to be the GP at St Mary's Island Surgery, in Chatham, by cancelling his registration to work as a GP at the site.

The organisation says the decision to cancel the registration means he can no longer legally provide primary medical services at the practice.

A new health provider has now been introduced at the surgery in Edgeway and registered with the commission to provide general practice services.

The organisation and the NHS Medway Clinical Commissioning Group and NHS England have worked together to restore patient safety.

Inspectors took the action regarding Dr Lawrence because they had serious concerns about the service and the risks to people using it.

The commission first inspected St Mary’s Island Surgery in December 2015 and rated the practice as inadequate overall.

As a result the practice was placed in special measures and it worked with NHS Medway CCG and NHS England while in special measures to significantly improve the level of care and treatment.

The CQC inspected again in September 2016 and took the practice out of special measures as a result of the improvements it had made and rated it good overall.

A further unannounced inspection took place in January 2018, which was carried out in response to concerns which had been raised to CQC.

The CQC found the concerns were such that on January 29 immediate conditions were imposed on Dr Lawrence’s registration.

The conditions included clearing the backlog of prescription requests; and ensuring a suitably qualified experienced person is present at the practice to manage day to day delivery of the service.

The practice failed to address these conditions, so took action to cancel the Dr Lawrence’s registration was cancelled.

Ruth Rankie, CQC’s deputy chief inspector of general practice, said: "The way in which St Mary’s Island Surgery was operating under Dr Lawrence failed to meet the fundamental aspects of good care and treatment that people have the right to expect - high quality, compassionate and safe.

“Enforcement action to close a service is not something that the CQC takes lightly.

"Where we find that patients are at significant risk, as we did in this case, we have no choice but to work with our partner agencies in order to take action to protect the safety and welfare of the public.”

"In this instance, given the seriousness of what we found on inspection, we are confident we took the right decision to protect people.

"When necessary, we will use our powers to do what it takes to make sure patients and the public are protected.”

Sarah Vaux, chief nurse at Medway Clinical Commissioning Group, added: “As soon as we were alerted to potential issues we contacted the CQC and worked with them during their inspections.

"We wish to reassure patients that Dr Lawrence is no longer at the surgery and a dedicated team of medical professionals has reviewed the notes of all the patients registered at the practice. Where necessary all patients have now been contacted.

“If patients have any concerns about their own treatment they are asked to call the helpline on 01634 335281 or email mccg.enquiries@nhs.net."

The helpline is available from 8am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.