A GP surgery has been placed in special measures after the health regulator rated it inadequate.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said Dr Surendra Kumar Dhariwal’s Manor Park Medical Practice put patients “at risk of harm” because systems “were not in place to keep them safe”.

But Dr Dhariwal, the sole GP at the Romford Road surgery, said there was “no question of a compromise about safety” and dismissed parts of the report as irrelevant.

The findings from the inspection, which was carried out on June 29, were released at the beginning of the month and labelled the practice inadequate in several areas.

Infection control was found to be an “area of concern” alongside emergency care, while cleanliness and hygiene were also deemed poor.

The surgery had no emergency oxygen, medicines were out of date, items cluttered the fire exit and carpets and clinical equipment were “visibly dirty”, the report added.

But Dr Dhariwal, who explained he has been a GP at the practice for 48 years, said he had corrected “a lot of” the problems by August 25.

“The CQC has been picking up on things they say would jeopardise the safety of the patients, but they don’t,” he said.

“It’s a really good practice – we have been here for donkey’s years, and now they are saying, ‘You didn’t do that, you didn’t do this’.

“How can that be? There’s not a single case of them finding a patient who’s not being treated well.”

Criticism of marks on the carpets, he said, were unfair because “stains are not a safety issue”.

Addressing concerns about out-of-date medicines, Dr Dhariwal said: “They should not be thrown down the toilet. We didn’t give the medicine out to patients – it was here because it needed to be disposed of properly.”

Emergency oxygen was temporarily unavailable, he added, because new cylinders were needed – but stressed patients were unlikely to come to a GP surgery if “gasping”.

“They would call an ambulance,” he said.

Ursula Gallagher, deputy chief inspector of general practice at CQC, said the inspection “found evidence of poor practice that placed the patients at risk together with a lack of clear leadership and management.”

She added: “I do not believe that the practice is likely to resolve its challenges without external support. This is why we are placing the practice into special measures.”

If after six months the practice is still deemed inadequate, the CQC said it will take steps to cancel its registration with the regulator.