A WOMBWELL doctor's surgery has been told it needs to improve following an inspection.

The Care Quality Commission said Wombwell Medical Centre - which has around 9,680 patients - is inadequate and it has now been placed into special measures.

Prof Steve Field, chief inspector of general practice, said in the report: "While we assessed this practice as providing a caring service and rated this as good, improvements are needed to assure safe, effective, responsive and well-led services."

Issues around working with other services, such as health visitors and midwives, long waits after scheduled appointment times and the management of medicines were identified as improvement areas.

Wombwell Medical Centre said they were disappointed with the score as just 12 months earlier an inspection had not flagged any problems.

A spokesman added: "We are really pleased that the report acknowledged that the face to face contact with patients and our approach to 'caring' was rated good.

"We will now focus on the recommendations and our team, along with support from the CCG, will make every effort to address these issues over the following few weeks and months, in preparation for a re-inspection in six months time."