“Significant failings” at Farnborough’s Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH) have been found in an independent report.

The Care Quality Commission has published information following a rigorous inspection led by England’s chief inspector of hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, which highlights numerous problems at the facility.

The site, which was taken over by King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (KCH) last year, is said to have fared particularly badly in areas such as management, patient records and waiting times.

Part of the report reads: “The lack of availability of medical records in the outpatients department meant that at times patients were undergoing complex medical procedures without clinicians having access to a complete set of notes.”

It identifies the “scale, number and longstanding nature of many of the problems” that KCH inherited when it took control and says it’s told the trust “it must take action”.

CQC says improvements to A&E waiting times, access to records, patient flow and ensuring staff adhere to infection control procedures must be addressed, with other areas also said to require urgent attention.

Professor Sir Mike Richards said: “We did find areas in which we thought the trust needed to take swift action to fix some of the problems.”

In response to the findings PRUH is said to be “keen to engage” with a programme to improve the unit, while “difficult circumstances” were also noted.

Professor Sir Mike Richards added: “Since the inspection, the trust has taken some action and further action is planned. We will return in due course to check that this has been done.”

A spokesperson for the trust said: “We have robust plans in place to drive up standards at the PRUH, and since October we have already started the process of improving the standard of patient care which our doctors and nurses are providing.”

In addition to the failings some positives were mentioned by the CQC. It said there was “good practice in the Critical Care Unit (CCU)” and said staff were committed to raising the bar.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning 20 patients were evacuated from one of the hospital’s wards after a ceiling collapsed.

Four fire crews attended the scene and a burst water pipe was found to be the cause. PRUH said it is set to carry out a health and safety review.