St. Laurence's Medical Centre

Updated 20 June 2022

St. Laurence's Medical Centre, SK Health (Knowsley) Ltd service operates from within premises located at 32 Leeside Avenue, Liverpool, L32 9QU.

They provide minor surgical procedures and operations to people age 12 years and over, such as removal of skin lesions under local anaesthetic, joint injections and ear, nurse and throat consultations.

SK Health (Knowsley) Ltd consists of three doctors who are specialists in their field of work, assisted by a nurse or healthcare assistant. The clinical team are supported by an administrative assistant and a practice manager.

Opening hours/hours of operation:

Thursday 1pm to 3pm

The service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care 2008 to provide the following Regulated Activity: Surgical procedures

How we inspected this service

Before visiting we reviewed a range of information we hold about the service and asked the service to send us a range of information. This included their latest statement of purpose, details of staff employed including, their qualifications and proof of registration with their professional bodies. As part of the inspection we reviewed feedback gathered from patients, spoke to the registered manager and service manager, and reviewed a range of documents.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we always ask the following five questions:

• Is it safe?
• Is it effective?
• Is it caring?
• Is it responsive to people’s needs?
• Is it well-led?

These questions therefore formed the framework for the areas we looked at during the inspection.

Updated 20 June 2022

This service is rated as Good overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at St. Laurence's Medical Centre (operated by and known as SK Health (Knowsley) Ltd) as part of our inspection programme. This location was previously inspected in 2017 (comprehensive inspection) and 2018 (focussed follow up inspection), but not rated.

The provider SK Health (Knowsley) Ltd offers minor surgical procedures under contract from the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), Knowsley CCG. It is based within St. Laurence’s Medical Centre, Knowsley.

The lead GP is the registered manager. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

At the time of the inspection there were no patients attending or receiving regulated services and we were unable to ask them about the service. However, we reviewed comments from patients that the service had received as part of its continuous satisfaction survey conducted.

Our key findings were:

• Patients received care that was delivered safely and effectively.
• Clinicians assessed patients according to appropriate guidance, legislation and standards and delivered care and treatment in line with current evidence-based guidance.
• There were enough staff who were suitably qualified and trained.
• Patients received detailed and clear information about their proposed treatment which enabled them to make an informed decision. This included risks and benefits of treatment.
• Pre-operative and post-operative care and advice was clear and written information was available.
• Patients were offered appointments and treatment in a timely manner.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
• There was an effective governance framework in place in order to gain feedback and to assess, monitor and improve the quality of the services provided.
• The provider was aware of the requirements of the Duty of Candour.

The area where the provider should make improvements are:

• Include doctors’ signatures on all completed consent forms.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care