A West Suffolk GP surgery has been placed in special measures after receiving an 'inadequate' rating due to breaches of regulations in relation to care and treatment being provided in a safe way to patients.

The Long Melford Surgery on Cordell Road, Sudbury, received an 'inadequate' rating on its latest Care Quality Commission (CQC) report.

Dr Christopher Browning, a GP partner at the practice, said: "Clearly we are very disappointed to have received this CQC rating.

"We had already recognised that changes needed to be made and we were in the process of making many of these. We are determined to continue to work tirelessly to bring about improvements, working with our patients and staff to make it happen."

The CQC inspection found that legal requirements were not being met for the safe prescribing of medicines, structured medicine reviews and recognising and managing patients with potential diabetes safely.

They were also found to be in breach of multiple good governance regulations, including: failing to complete all actions from legionella assessments, significant delays in infection and prevention control audits, not identifying Chicken Pox immunisation status in staff and a lack of supervision and competency checks.

The practice was deemed 'good' for how caring its services are, but was categorised as 'inadequate' for the remaining four ratings - whether services are safe, effective, responsive to people's needs and well-led.

The inspection revealed a "lack of leadership had failed to ensure safe and effective care and treatment" and that "the practice was unable to demonstrate that good systems and process were in place".

The report also detailed that the "practice performance in relation to patient feedback around access was poor" and in some areas was significantly below local and national averages.

Dr Browning added: "Our staff work very hard for our patients and want to do the very best for them, but like other GP practices across the country recruitment remains a major challenge, undoubtedly exacerbated by the rurality of our location and this is putting pressure on our performance.

"While recruitment issues cannot be immediately resolved, by introducing new ways of working, we can better serve our patients more safely and effectively."

The report further detailed that while they did not breach regulations in relation to the following points, they should: continue to encourage patients to attend for the national cancer screening programme, embed the newly implemented systems to manage and monitor complaints and significant events and continue to find ways to engage with the patient participation group.