A BOLTON doctors surgery has been places into special measures after inspectors find "safety concerns".

Inspectors from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have rated the Beehive Surgery in Great Lever as inadequate overall, with individual ratings of inadequate for safety, responsiveness and well led, requires improvement for effectiveness and good for caring.

It follows an inspection of the practice in Crescent Road, which has 3,035 registered patients, on June 15.

Areas of concern included an absence of "clear leadership" within the practice – such as no effective relationship among the GP partners and lack of of structure in daily working arrangements – and children and young people not always being treated in an "age-appropriate way and recognised as individuals".

In addition while patients were able to access appointments they told inspectors there were long waiting times at the practice.

As a result, England’s Chief Inspector of General Practice has placed the GP practice into special measures.

Alison Holbourn, deputy chief inspector of General Practice for the North, said she was disappointed the surgery had been rated inadequate for the quality of care for vulnerable, older and young patients as well as families and the areas needed "to be addressed as a matter of urgency".

She added: "It is important that the people who are registered with the Beehive Surgery can rely on getting the high quality care.

"There were aspects of safety that caused concern. Significant events were not consistently recorded and discussion in meetings around learning was not recorded.

"In addition fire extinguishers were all out of date by up to 20 years and this had not been identified by the fire risk assessment carried out in May 2017.

"I was concerned with a number of issues. Clinical complaints were routinely dealt with by the clinician involved. However they were not monitored and not responded to appropriately.

"We saw no evidence of learning from complaints. In addition although patients could access appointments they told us there was a long waiting time at the practice. We saw evidence of a partner arriving late for surgeries and leaving part way through a surgery."

However, in a survey reviewed by inspectors, patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and and respect.

Inspectors also saw that staff treated patients with kindness and respect, and maintained patient and information confidentiality.

A spokesperson for the surgery said: "Following the CQC inspection a number of issues were raised about the running of the practice.

"We are working to address these issues and to make the necessary improvements.

"If the patients have any concerns please contact the surgery directly. We cannot comment further."

The Beehive Surgery will be inspected again within six months and the service kept under review.

If no improvement is made it will be escalated to urgent enforcement action and the CQC will move to close the service.