Patients have complained that they are being forced to wait at least two weeks to get an appointment at a doctor’s surgery which was formerly subject to a fraud scandal over ‘ghost’ patients.

Salmaan Dalvi and his wife Ishrat, of Stanford Way, Mitcham, claim the Streatham Place Surgery in Streatham Hill has fallen into decline since ex-practice partners and married couple Dr Arun and Jayanti Singh were suspended amid fraud allegations.

The surgery was recently taken over by another healthcare provider after the Singhs, along with doctors Nusrat Mazhar and Vinodray Patel, were suspended.

They are accused of defrauding the NHS of millions of pounds by collecting money for ex-patients.

Mr Dalvi, a patient at the surgery for more than 30 years, said administrative staff were frequently unhelpful and doctors, many of whom are locums, were prescribing cheaper medicines to save money.

He has made a formal complaint against the Hurley Group, who currently have responsibility for the practice, to the General Medical Council.

He said: “These people just really do not want to know. The attitude is; ‘Go away, we do not need you’.

“I am fully aware that the [former doctors] had a criminal case to answer but at least appointments were on time. It is only now that this is going on. It is pretty bad.”

Other patients have vented their frustration on the surgery’s NHS page, which has polled less than half of patients saying they would recommend it to a friend.

One wrote: “This practice will help to ruin the NHS as we know it today.

"The doctors do not seem to understand what a GP is.

“They do not have the patience to even listen to a patient and the commonsense to behave or treat patients like humans.”

Another said: “Why should the NHS pay for such a practice as this, where medical professionalism does not exist?”

Patients rated the surgery’s organisation levels at just 40 per cent according to the most recent figures compiled by the NHS.

A spokesman for NHS Lambeth said the Hurley Group had taken over the surgery for an “interim period” and had made “a number of changes to improve the standard of care”.

He said patients now had access to a “proper appointment booking system” with a “permanent, stable team of GPs and nurses” where previously patients had “no guarantee” of seeing a doctor at a specific time.

He said: “We have not received any complaints about the standards of care or the behaviour of staff at the practice.

"However, if patients are unhappy, we would encourage them to make a formal complaint.”