A Muswell Hill GP surgery has received an "inadequate" rating for safety after failing to monitor patients on high risk drugs "appropriately".

Rutland House Surgery, in Colney Hatch Lane, was rated overall as "requires improvement" by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Inspectors found that while caring services and being responsive to people's needs were good, effective and well-led services, both required improvement.

As a result of the inadequate services the CQC issued the practice with a warning notice for breaching regulation 12 (1) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

The list of problems included a failure to monitor appropriately patients on high-risk medications. The practice did not have "an effective system to implement medication reviews and patient safety alerts".

"Some patients who had long term conditions had not received their blood tests and reviews in a timely manner," the report said.

"There were concerns regarding the security of the administrative office on the first floor, which had an unlocked door easily accessible by tenants in the building."

Inspectors found was no effective oversight of risks, such as protecting staff and patients from legionella and fire safety. They said the practice did not stock all the required emergency medication.

The temperature of the vaccine fridge was not properly monitored.

The infection prevention and control policy and the privacy screens in the branch site were not properly maintained, raising "concerns".

As well as general services, the surgery offers maternity and midwifery services, family planning, diagnostic and screening procedures, surgical procedures and treatment of diseases, disorders or injuries.

Inspectors said the surgery had recently undergone a merger with Queens Avenue Practice, resulting in the patient list size increasing from 7,000 to 11,000.

"The provider told us some of the shortcomings they had could have been because of a lack of staff available to oversee both sites and therefore they will look into increasing and hiring further staff to help manage both sites more
effectively," the report said.

"The practice had shown a high level of responsiveness to the concerns identified during the inspection, as they informed us of their action plan to resolve the concerns shortly after the inspection."

Rutland House said the rating was a "disappointing outcome".

"We accept all the outcomes and recommendations made by the CQC."

A spokesperson said the surgery had made "huge progress" since the inspection and will address outstanding recommendations "on all the areas highlighted to provide safe, effective and high-quality clinical care".