Netherton Practice

Updated 19 December 2023

Netherton Practice is located in Netherton, Bootle, Merseyside.

The address of the practice is:

Netherton Health Centre

Magdalen Square

Bootle

Liverpool

L30 5SP

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities;

• Diagnostic and screening procedures
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

The practice is situated within Sefton and falls under the Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care System (ICS) and provides services to approximately 2,800 patients under the terms of a General Medical Services (GMS) contract. This is a contract between general practices and NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices, primary care network (PCN) across the locality.

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the lowest decile (1 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 98.5% White, 0.8% Mixed, 0.4% Asian, 0.5% Black and 0.1% Other.

The registered provider for the service is Primary Care 24 (Merseyside) Limited. The provider is a social enterprise providing a range of urgent and primary care services across Merseyside and Cheshire Merseyside ICS.

The practice has 1 full time salaried GP and the team includes an advanced nurse practitioner (ANP) working one day per week and a pharmacist. The practice is also supported by a centralised team of clinicians. The clinical team are supported by a practice manager and team of reception/administration staff. A centralised team also support the running of the service.

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

Extended access is provided locally by the primary care network (PCN) where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Patients can access the Out of hours service by calling 111.

Updated 19 December 2023

We carried out an announced assessment of Netherton Practice on 24 November 2023. The assessment focused on the responsive key question.

Following our previous inspection on 24 February 2020 the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions. The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Netherton Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

The practice continues to be rated as good overall as this was the rating given at the last comprehensive inspection. However, we have now rated the responsive key question as requires improvement as a result of the findings of this focused assessment.

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring - Good

Responsive – Requires improvement

Well-led - Good

Why we carried out this review

We carried out this assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are working to try to meet demand for access and to better understand the experiences of people who use services and providers.

We recognise the work that GP practices have been engaged in to continue to provide safe, quality care to the people they serve. We know colleagues are doing this while demand for general practice remains exceptionally high, with more appointments being provided than ever. In this challenging context, access to general practice remains a concern for people. Our strategy makes a commitment to deliver regulation driven by people’s needs and experiences of care. These assessments of the responsive key question include looking at what practices are doing innovatively to improve patient access to primary care and sharing this information to drive improvement.

How we carried out the review

This assessment was carried out remotely. It did not include a site visit.

The process included:

• Conducting an interview with the provider and members of staff using video conferencing.
• Reviewing patient feedback from a range of sources
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• Reviewing data we hold about the service
• Seeking information/feedback from relevant stakeholders

Our findings

We based our judgement of the responsive key question on a combination of:

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

We found that:

• The provider organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs. They worked alongside other agencies to meet the needs of the patients and improve their experiences of care and treatment.
• Patient feedback was that they could not always access care and treatment in a timely way. Patients were dissatisfied with the arrangements for getting through to the practice by phone and their experience of obtaining an appointment.
• Complaints were listened to, managed appropriately and used to improve the quality of care.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Produce a detailed plan as to how they intend to respond to patient concerns/feedback about access and their experience of making an appointment with an aim to improve patient experience.

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