A Whitehaven GP surgery has transformed from inadequate to good in just seven months.

Lowther Medical Centre - which has over 10,000 patients - was labelled inadequate and placed into special measures by health watchdog, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), during an inspection last August.

But, when inspectors returned in March this year, they found dramatic improvements had been made.

The full report, rating the Castle Meadows surgery as good, has now been published.

One of the GP partners, Dr Fiona Ironside, said: "August 5 last year was probably one of the worst days of my life. Not only was I devastated but I was profoundly embarrassed.

"Unfortunately they were right, now we have gone through the process I can see why they wanted us to do it.

"You can do something beforehand which is good but it's about being able to do it everyday at the same standard."

She added: "There isn't any quick way to solve a problem. You have to start at the bottom, from infection control to the management of drugs we just worked from basic principles up to where we are now."

In August last year, the surgery was told it needed to upgrade in a number of areas, which it has now done.

These included:

Taking action to ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way through the proper and safe management of medicines;

Putting effective systems in place to manage and monitor the prevention and control of infection;

Putting in place systems or processes which must be established and operated effectively to demonstrate good governance;

Ensuring staff receive appropriate support, training, professional development, supervision and appraisal.

And now, the CQC says Lowther Medical Centre has a clear vision, strategy and plan to deliver high quality care.

The latest report found:

There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events;

Risks to patients were assessed and well managed;

Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment;

Staff assessed patients' needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance.

Dr Ironside said: "We took every single line of the report and worked on it and everyone had a different area of responsibility. Every single member of the team was incredible. We've put in a structure of accountability so that everyone knows what is expected of them."

The surgery still requires improvement for responsiveness as some patients reported they found it difficult to make an appointment.

"We've got a requires improvement for access and we've embraced that. We believe having something to work for makes us work more cohesively," said Dr Ironside.

"We now have an open access surgery from 8am to 9am every morning, we have open access for children and we now have double the amount of clinicians we had a year ago."

Dr Ironside said the next step is receiving an outstanding inspection.

She also thanked practice manager Linda Steel, who came out of retirement to help the practice, Julie Badley, an experienced practice manager from Kirkby Lonsdale, and Peter Higgins, from the Local Medical Committee, for their support.