- GP practice
Hightown Village Surgery
Assessment report published 5 March 2026
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of Assessment: 13 and 15 January 2026. Hightown Village Surgery is a GP practice which offers a range of primary medical services from its location at 1 St Georges Road, Hightown, Merseyside, L38 3RY. The practice delivers services to approximately 1,700 patients under a contract held with NHS England. The practice was registered with CQC on 23rd June 2023 and is supported through a full management team located at an office in Litherland. According to the latest available data, the practice is situated within a less deprived area, and the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 97% White, 1.1% Asian, 1.1% Mixed, 0.3% Black and 0.5% Other ethnicity. We assessed all 5 key questions to establish if the services provided are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. The service is rated good overall. We rated the practice as requires improvement for providing a responsive service and the remaining key questions are rated as good.
Feedback shared directly with CQC about access, patient experience and communication was mostly negative. The practice reported efforts to improve access, patient experience, and communication systems for all patients, including those who are digitally excluded, to enhance overall patient feedback.Despite changes being made to improve access, feedback from patients indicated that they continued to be dissatisfied with the arrangements for access. We found 1 breach of legal regulations in relation to Good Governance. The provider did not have an effective system to seek patient views about contacting the service and getting a timely appointment, act upon them and evaluate that the action taken had led to improved patient satisfaction. We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.
We found there were processes in place to learn from safety events. Complaints were investigated and learning from these was shared. Medicines were well managed. The premises were clean and well maintained, and risks had been assessed and mitigated. Care and treatment were provided in line with best practice guidance. People who used the service were treated with kindness and compassion and staff protected their privacy and dignity.
People's experience of this service
The provider encouraged feedback from people who used the service to make improvements. Friends and Family Test data shared by the practice showed that people’s experience of the service was mixed but positive overall with regards to the care and treatment provided and in their interactions with staff. Feedback sent directly to CQC showed that patient experience of accessing the service was mostly negative. The results of the National GP Patient Survey were significantly lower than local and national average scores for patient satisfaction about access. During the assessment, the practice highlighted efforts they were making to improve access, patient experience and communication systems for patients to improve the feedback given by patients. At the time of the assessment, the practice did not have an active Patient Participation Group (PPG). The provider was exploring alternative ways to gather and act on feedback to help inform service improvement.