Heath Hill Surgery in Crowthorne, The Waterfield Practice in Harmans Water, Forest End Medical Centre in Birch Hill and Binfield Surgery were all plunged into the second-lowest category of health watchdog Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) four-point scale.

While Heath Hill’s care and responsiveness was classed as good, its safety, effectiveness and leadership at the surgery needed to improve. Despite the majority of the feedback given to The Waterfield Practice being positive, its lack of training given to staff led the CQC to drop it down a grade.

Binfield Surgery’s handling of its medicines was criticised by the watchdog and branded as ‘inadequate’. Forest End Medical Centre was commended for its treatment and care of patients, but concerns were raised over the storage and disposal of clinical waste.

Professor Nigel Sparrow, the CQC’s senior national GP adviser, said: “We know that the vast majority of England’s GPs are providing a service which is safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led. If that is what we find on inspection – we give it a rating of ‘good’.

“Patients should be able to expect high quality and consistent care from every GP practice. Where we have required improvement, we will expect the practice to take the necessary steps to address the issue, and we will return at a later date to check that those improvements have been made.” Boundary House Surgery in Bracknell town centre and Kings Corner Surgery in Sunninghill were classed as ‘good’.

Dr Martin Kittel, a medical director at the Bracknell and Ascot Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and a GP at Forest End Medical Centre, said: “We need to look at each surgery individually and address the issues that have been raised. We are all passionate people locally and we all want to see our medical services all performing well so we are keen to make these improvements quickly.”