Billinge Medical Practice

Updated 18 July 2024

Date of assessment: 26 September to 8 October 2024. Billinge Medical Practice is an NHS GP practice located in St Helens, Merseyside in an area of low deprivation. There were approximately 7,469 people registered with the service at the time of our assessment. We conducted this assessment due to the service being rated as inadequate overall at our last comprehensive inspection in September 2023. At the last inspection breaches were identified in Regulation 12 Safe care and treatment and 17 Good governance of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. At this assessment, we have rated the practice as good overall. We assessed 32 quality statements across the safe, effective, caring, responsive, and well-led key questions. We have combined the scores for these areas with scores from a focused assessment carried out 29 April to 13 May 2024 which took place to ensure the provider was making the required improvements to their governance systems. We found there were continued improvements to safety and governance. We saw improved systems to manage access to the service and to listen to feedback from patients and act on this. There were systems and processes in place to ensure people received effective care and treatment.

Updated 18 July 2024

To understand the experience of patients we met with representatives from the Patient Participation Group (PPG). We also reviewed Healthwatch feedback, results from the family and friends survey, National GP Patient Survey, PPG patient survey, feedback on the NHS.uk website (formerly NHS Choices) and feedback through complaints. We asked patients to provide feedback during the assessment however no comments were returned. Overall feedback was positive about the service. The main theme of comments was about the improved access to the service. Feedback showed people considered improvements had been made to access by phone, access to appointments and additional services. When people raised an issue about their care and treatment this was appropriately managed and responded to and any action needed was used to improve the service. The National GP Survey was carried out from January 2024 – March 2024 shortly after the current provider began operating the service. Following a number of changes to staffing and access to appointments the PPG carried out a further survey in July 2024. This survey asked the same questions as the National GP Patient Survey. The PPG survey received 536 responses compared to the 103 responses received for the National GP Patient Survey. The PPG survey indicated improvements in patient feedback about access to the service and their care and treatment.