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Professor Steve Field, Chief Inspector of General Practice at the Care Quality Commission (CQC), said: "We are extremely disappointed that the Royal College of General Practitioners has called for an ‘emergency pause’ to our inspections of general practices, which we carry out to make sure that people across England get safe, high-quality and compassionate primary care. The safety and quality of care of people who use these services continue to be our number one priority.

"Already our inspections have allowed us to rate over 1,100 general practices across the country as Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate.  We believe these can help people to make informed choices about their care.

"So far, around 85% of these general practices have been either Good or Outstanding.

"However, when over 1 in 7 general practices are not delivering the care that patients have every right to expect, now is not the time for us to put a halt on our inspections.

"In the last few weeks alone, we have found some seriously deficient primary care, which has led to us cancelling the registrations of some practices, in the interests of protecting the safety and quality of care for people who use these services.

"As a practising GP, I have never intended for our inspections to be experienced as a burden to those in the profession – and for a well-managed practice, the information we ask them to provide should not present itself as one."

For media enquiries about the Care Quality Commission, please call the press office on 020 7448 9401 during office hours.

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Journalists wishing to speak to the press office outside of office hours can find out how tocontact the team here. Please note: the duty press officer is unable to advise members of thepublic on health or social care matters.

For general enquiries, please call 03000 61 61 61.

Notes to editors

As of Monday 22 June 2015, CQC has rated 1,101 general practices across England. Of these 36 (3%) have been Outstanding, 898 (82%) have been Good, 126 (11%) have been Requires Improvement and 41 (4%) have been Inadequate.

By September 2016, CQC expects to have inspected all of the 8,400 general practices that are registered in England.

In October 2014, CQC introduced its new inspection regime for general practices, which are led by expert teams, use a broad range of information, and lead to ratings based on what matters most to people who use services: are they safe, caring, effective, responsive to their needs, and well-led.

In the last three weeks, CQC has cancelled the registration of three general practices in response to concerns about poor care. Find out more about CQC’s enforcement policy.

About the Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and social care in England.

We make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and we encourage care services to improve.

We monitor, inspect and regulate services to make sure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety and we publish what we find to help people choose care.