- GP practice
Hollyhurst Medical Centre
Assessment report published 23 December 2025
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Hollyhurst Medical Centre is a GP practice and delivers service to 4,987 patients under a contract held with NHS England. There is also a branch practice called Elvaston Road surgery which provides primary care services to patients in the Ryton area of Gateshead.
The practice is situated within the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB).
The National General Practice Profiles states that according to the latest available data, the ethnic makeup of the practice area is 97.26% White, 1.03% Asian, 0.4% Black, 0.94% Mixed and Other 0.45%. Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the 6 decile (6 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others. This assessment considered the demographics of the people using the service, the context the service was working within and how this impacted service delivery. Where relevant, further commentary is provided in the quality statements section of this report.
This was a responsive assessment carried out as a follow-up to the previous assessment conducted on 20 June 2024 when the practice was rated as requires improvement overall and requires improvement for the key questions of safe and well led. At that time, breaches of Regulation 12 (safe care and treatment) and Regulation 17 (good governance) were identified.
We carried out this assessment on 5 November 2025. The purpose of this follow-up assessment was to evaluate the progress made in addressing the identified concerns and to determine whether the necessary improvements had been implemented to ensure compliance.
The key questions of ‘are services effective, caring and responsive’ were not re-rated.
For this inspection the service overall rating of requires improvement stayed the same. The ratings for the key questions of safe and well led also remained as requires improvement.
The service had a good learning culture and people could raise concerns. Managers investigated incidents thoroughly. People were protected and kept safe. Staff understood and managed risks. The facilities and equipment met the needs of people, were clean and maintained and any risks mitigated or were in the process of being mitigated. Staff had the right skills, qualifications and experience. Managers made sure staff received training and regular appraisals to maintain high-quality care.
Leaders and staff had a shared vision and culture based on listening, learning and trust. Leaders were visible, knowledgeable and supportive, helping staff develop in their roles. Staff felt supported to give feedback and were treated equally, free from bullying or harassment. Staff understood their roles and responsibilities. Managers worked with the local community to deliver the good care and were receptive to new ideas.
Since the last inspection, the practice had made some improvements to the premises at Hollyhurst Medical Centre and Elvaston Road surgery although the repairs to Elvaston Road surgery were still in progress. Staff vaccination records were held, monitored and maintained and all staff had a disclosure and barring service certificate. Clinical and non-clinical tasks assigned to staff on the electronic clinical system had reduced notably and a management oversight system had been implemented. However, there remained a lack of appropriate, regular and documented clinical supervision with no changes made. Remote clinical searches showed annual reviews were not always being completed in a timely way and medications continued to be prescribed when patients were non-compliant. During this assessment we also found inconsistencies in clinical staff cover for planned leave which had negatively impacted on patient access to nursing staff appointments. Therefore, the service remains in breach of safe care and treatment and good governance. We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.
People's experience of this service
Feedback from patients from the various sources of information available were mostly good.
The most recent National GP Patient Survey results were good overall. For example, the percentage of respondents to the GP patient survey who responded positively to the overall experience of their GP practice was 89%, the national average was 69.3%.
The practice provided some analysed results of NHS Friends and Family Test which showed people were satisfied with services. In August 2025, 92% of respondents rated the practice as good or very good. We reviewed the 3 previous months of July, June and May 2025 and the respondents who rated the practice as good or very good was consistently 92% and above. The positive responses praised the practice for providing a professional, helpful and friendly service.
The commission received 4 complaints in the 12 months prior to our assessment. These varied in theme from access, information governance, culture and clinical care.
We read numerous thank you cards and letters received by the practice, which were positive and thanked the staff for excellent care and kindness.
We spoke with 2 longstanding patients who were very complimentary of the service and all staff they dealt with. We also spoke with the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB).
The practice had struggled to re convene a patient participation group (PPG) after the Covid 19 pandemic to gain views of people using the service. As an alternative they tried to set up a joint group with a neighbouring practice however, again there was little uptake.