A South Norfolk GP surgery has been put into special measures after inspectors discovered a range of issues putting patient safety at risk.

Church Hill Surgery in Pulham Market, Diss, was found to be inadequate by Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors in July, who said urgent action was needed.

Inspectors found dozens of issues at the surgery, which provides services for around 4,500 patients.

These included failing to adequately assess patient's needs, not delivering care in line with current legislation or standards guidelines, not ensuring medicines were prescribed safely and failing to monitor patients on high-risk medicines.

Church Hill Surgery was also found to be inadequate on the CQCs key metrics - safe, effective and well-led - as well as across all age groups, vulnerable people and those with poor mental health.

This is a drop from their last inspection in May 2017, which rated them good across the board.

The service provider will now have six months to turn the surgery around before another inspection.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth, chief inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care, said: “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 care they get should improve.

"As a result of the findings from our focused inspection, as to non-compliance, but more seriously, the risk to service users’ life, health and wellbeing, the commission decided to issue an urgent notice of decision to impose conditions on the provider’s CQC registration.”

A spokesperson on behalf of Church Hill Surgery said: “Obviously we are disappointed to have been given an inadequate rating.

"We are working closely with the CQC and NHS Norfolk and Waveney Clinical Commissioning Group to make the required improvements as soon as possible.”