Hillfoot Health

Updated 8 December 2023

Hillfoot Health is located in Hunts Cross, Merseyside.

The address of the practice is:

70 Hillfoot Road

Liverpool

Merseyside

L25 0ND

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

• Diagnostic and screening procedures
• Maternity and midwifery services
• Surgical procedures
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

The practice is situated within Liverpool and falls under the Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care System (ICS) and provides services to approximately 7,600 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 primary care network (PCN) of 15 GP practices in South Liverpool known as ‘SWAGGA’ PCN covering Speke, Woolton, Aigburth, Gateacre, Garston and Allerton.

The service is run by a partnership of 3 GPs and the clinical team includes 3 salaried GPs, 2 practice nurses and a healthcare assistant. The GPs are supported at the practice by a practice manager and team of reception/administration staff. The practice is a training practice and at the time of the assessment there were 2 trainee GPs at the practice.

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 in collaboration with another practice and patients can book late appointments between 6.30pm and 8pm Monday to Friday. Patients could also be booked into extended access appointments on Saturdays provided by Primary Care 24. Patients can access the Out of hours service by calling 111.

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the third lowest decile (3 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 95.1% White, 1.9% Mixed, 2.1% Asian, 0.7% Black and 0.2% Other.

Updated 8 December 2023

We carried out an announced assessment of Hillfoot Health on 10 November 2023. The assessment focused on the responsive key question.

Following our previous inspection on 1 March 2019 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 Hillfoot Health on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

The service continues to be rated as good for the responsive key question as a result of the findings of this focused assessment. The practice continues to be rated as good overall as this was the rating given at the last comprehensive inspection.

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring - Good

Responsive – Good

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:

• During the assessment process, the provider highlighted the work they are doing to maintain and improve the responsiveness of the service for their patient population.
• The provider organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs.
• People were able to access care and treatment in a timely way.
• Complaints were listened to, managed appropriately and used to improve the quality of care.

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

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Health Care