Hall Street Medical Centre

Updated 13 November 2023

Hall Street Medical Centre is located in St Helens at:

28-30 Hall Street

St Helens

WA10 1DW

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning, maternity and midwifery services, treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures.

The practice is situated within Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population to approximately 5,426 patients. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

Locally, the practice is part of a wider network of 8 GP practices called a primary care network (PCN) in the St Helens Central Primary Care Network.

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the second lowest decile (2 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others.

According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 98.1% White, 1.1% Asian, Mixed 0.6% and 0.1% Other. The age distribution of the practice population closely mirrors the local and national averages. There are approximately 2,463 female patients and 2,490 male patients registered at the practice. Life expectancy for females is 80 years and 75.7 years for males.

There is a team of 2 male and 1 female GPs who provide cover at the practice. This consists of the clinical lead/provider and 2 salaried GPs. The practice also has 1 male ST2 and 1 female ST3 junior doctors working at the practice. An ST2 and ST3 GP registrar is a qualified doctor and has now decided to pursue a career in general practice. They were in their second/third year of GP training and will have their own surgeries, but they will still be supervised by their GP trainer.

Additionally, the practice employs 1 advanced nurse practitioner, 1 trainee advanced clinical practitioner/practice nurse, 1 practice nurse, 1 clinical pharmacist, 1 trainee nurse associate and 1 health care assistant.

The clinical team is supported by a practice management team that consists of 1 practice manager, 1 assistant practice manager, 1 senior administrator/data officer, 5 medical receptionists and 1 apprentice medical receptionist.

The practice is open between 8am to 6.30 pm Monday to Friday. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations, online and advance appointments.

Extended access appointments are available via the PCN. Late evening and weekend appointments are offered at Lowe House Health Care Resource Centre on a Monday and Friday from 5.30pm to 8pm, Tuesday to Thursday from 5pm to 8.30pm and on Saturdays from 9am to 5pm.

Out of hours services are provided locally by Primary Care 24 Limited.

The Surgery is an approved training practice for the training of General Practice Registrars (GPRs).

Updated 13 November 2023

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Hall Street Medical Centre on 11 October 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

The key question ratings are as follows:

Safe - Good

Effective – Requires Improvement

Caring - Good

Responsive - Good

Well-led – Good

This is the first inspection of Hall Street Medical Centre since it was registered under a new provider with CQC in July 2022 .

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection in line with our inspection priorities. We inspected all of the key questions as part of this inspection.

How we carried out the inspection

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system (this was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements).
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A site visit.

Our findings

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

• what we found when we inspected
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We found that:

We rated the provider as good for providing safe services. This was because:

• The practice had clear systems, practices and processes to keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse.
• Staff had the information they needed to deliver safe care and treatment.

We rated the provider as requires improvement for providing effective services. This was because:

• Patients with long-term conditions were not always receiving appropriate monitoring or reviews.
• Do not attempt cardio pulmonary resuscitation records (DNACPR) were either incomplete or could not be located.
• The practice was not meeting the target for cervical screening uptake for eligible patients.

We rated the provider as good for providing caring services. This was because:

• Staff treated patients with patients with kindness and respect.
• The practice respected patient’s privacy and dignity.

We rated the provider as good for providing responsive services. This was because:

• The practice organised and delivered services to meet patient’s needs.
• Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.

We rated the provider as good for providing well-led services. This was because:

• There was compassionate and inclusive leadership at all levels.
• There was evidence of systems and processes for learning, continuous improvement and innovation.

We found one breach of regulations. The provider must:

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.

The provider should:

• Update training records to ensure gaps in training for staff such as infection, prevention and control are addressed.
• Improve the appraisal schedule to clarify the appraisers and appraisal dates for staff employed by the PCN in advanced clinical practice.
• Progress plans to improve the cervical screening uptake for eligible patients.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Health Care