WOKINGHAM Medical Centre has been rated ‘requires improvement’ following a report by care watchdogs.

The medical centre, in Rose Street, was giving the rating last month, and was pulled up on issues such as 'not always keeping patients safe' and 'protecting them from avoidable harm'.

It comes as part of a report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for the practice which cares for about 23,300 patients and comes as a new practice provider took over in April.

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The last report, recorded in 2018, rated the medical centre ‘good’ with minimal room for improvement.

The summary of the report, issued by the CQC, stated: “The area where the provider must make improvements are to ensure the care and treatment of patients is appropriate, meets their needs and reflects their preferences, and to ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.”

CQC inspectors found that fridges - containing vaccines that need to be kept at a specific temperature - had been going over the threshold regularly.

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It also reports a lack of positive responses to a survey on how easy it was to get through to their GP over the phone - The national average of positive response is 68.3 per cent, where Wokingham Medical Centre achieved 33.2 per cent.

The medical centre was rated across five categories including requires improvement for Safety and Responsive, and rated good for effective, caring, well-led.

The centre was praised for providing 'effective care and treatment that met patients needs'.

It also said patients were treated with kindness and respect.

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In response, the Wokingham Medical Centre. said: “Despite the investigator’s judgement, the report also detailed where the institution had excelled; the medical centre managed to over-achieve the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s target of vaccinating children aged 1 against Diptheria, Tetanus, Polio, Pertussis, Haemophilias Influenza type B (Hib) and Hepatitis B.

“Wokingham Medical Centre also successfully exceeded the average for England for percentage of survey responses who had ‘trust and confidence’ in the healthcare professional they saw, reaching 99.5per cent positive reports."