A south London GP surgery has been rated inadequate for a second time and faces closure unless there are significant improvements, inspectors have announced.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) carried out a second inspection at Village Surgery in New Malden in February, following an initial inspection in September after which the practice was placed in special measures and rated inadequate. However, inspectors said insufficient improvements had been made and the rating remains the same, warning the surgery it will be forced to close unless significant improvements are made. As well as being “inadequate” overall, Village Surgery was rated inadequate for being safe, effective, caring and well-led. It was also rated “requires improvement” for being responsive to people’s needs.

Andy Ford, CQC’s head of primary care service inspection, said: “It is extremely disappointing that Village Surgery had not improved since the last inspection, despite CQC telling it where changes must be made. It was not providing safe care and treatment for people and was putting patients at risk.”

Although there was no evidence of patient harm, inspectors said the practice was not monitoring patients on high-risk prescription medicines. There were hundreds of medication reviews overdue, as well as hundreds of overdue monitoring actions for patients with long-term conditions such as diabetes and hypertension. The inspection found staff did not know how to support non-English speakers, there was no system for identifying, monitoring or communicating internally about vulnerable patients or safeguarding concerns, while expired clinical equipment and other items were found in all clinical treatment rooms. There were other concerns around staff training, monitoring of patient complaints and feedback, and good governance.

“In line with our enforcement procedures we have begun the process to prevent this service from operating if immediate improvements are not made,” said Andy Ford. “We will be keeping the service under close review and if it is necessary to keep people safe, this will be escalated to more urgent enforcement action.”