Grove House Practice

Updated 5 January 2024

Grove House Practice is located in Runcorn at:

St Paul’s Health Centre,

High Street,

Runcorn,

Cheshire

WA7 1AB

The practice has a branch surgery at:

Heath Road Surgery,

78 Heath Road,

Runcorn

Cheshire

WA7 5TJ

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services, surgical procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

The practice is situated within Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population to approximately 14,556 patients. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

Locally, the practice is part of a wider network of 6 GP practices called a primary care network (PCN) in the Runcorn Primary Care Network.

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 98% White, 0.7% Asian, 1% Mixed, 0.2% Black and 0.1% Other. The age distribution of the practice population closely mirrors the local and national averages. There are approximately 7,022 female patients and 7,534 male patients registered at the practice. Life expectancy for females is 81.6 years and 77.7 years for males.

There is a team of 3 male and 11 female GPs who provide cover at the practice. This consists of 6 GP partners and 8 salaried GPs. Additionally, the practice employs 2 advanced nurse practitioners, 2 senior practice nurses, 2 practice nurses, 1 health care assistant, 1 trainee nurse associate and 3 GP assistants.

The clinical team is supported by a practice management team that consists of 1 business manager, 1 practice operations manager, 1 finance administrator, 1 business administrator, 1 care coordinator, 1 team leader performance, 1 clinical secretary, 5 information analysts, 1 practice medicines coordinator, 1 script clerk, 1 reception manager, 2 senior receptionists, 1 scanner and 15 receptionists.

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, advance appointments, face to face, telephone consultations and online.

Extended access appointments are available at the practice from 7am to 8am on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning. Late evening and weekend appointments are provided by the Runcorn GP Extra service for routine GP, advanced nurse practitioner, practice nurse and phlebotomy appointments Monday to Friday from 6:30pm to 8:30pm and on Saturdays from 9am to 5pm.

Out of hours services are provided locally by Primary Care 24 Limited.

The Surgery is an approved training practice for the training of General Practice Registrars (GPRs).

Updated 5 January 2024

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Grove House Practice on 15 November 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as Requires Improvement.

The key question ratings are as follows:

Safe - Good

Effective – Requires Improvement

Caring - Good

Responsive – Requires Improvement

Well-led – Good

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Grove House Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection in line with our inspection priorities. We inspected all of the key questions as part of this inspection.

How we carried out the inspection

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system (this was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements).
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A site visit.

Our findings

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

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

We found that:

We rated the provider as good for providing safe services. This was because:

• The practice had clear systems, practices and processes to keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse.
• Staff had the information they needed to deliver safe care and treatment.

We rated the provider as requires improvement for providing effective services. This was because:

• Patients prescribed medicines that required monitoring and those with long-term conditions were not always receiving appropriate monitoring or reviews, to ensure their treatment was optimised in line with national guidance.

We rated the provider as good for providing caring services. This was because:

• Staff treated patients with kindness and respect.
• Staff helped patients to be involved in decisions about their care and treatment.

We rated the provider as requires improvement for providing responsive services. This was because:

• The results of the most recent General Practice Patient Survey highlighted a number of areas for improvement.

We rated the provider as good for providing well-led services. This was because:

• There was compassionate and inclusive leadership at all levels.
• There was evidence of systems and processes for learning, continuous improvement and innovation.

We found one breach of regulations. The provider must:

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.

We also found that the provider should:

• Take action to improve the uptake of childhood immunisations and cervical cancer screening.
• Continue to work towards improving the areas identified in the General Practice Patient Survey.

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