We spent the first day of our visit at Victoria Central Hospital Walk-In Centre talking to patients and staff. We followed up our findings by looking at documents and speaking to managers and directors at the head office of Wirral Community NHS Trust the following day.

We spoke with five patients who were happy with the care they had received. Comments included, “The staff are lovely” and “I am happy with the service.” However, we did find first aid equipment out of date and identified issues around transfer times to hospitals in emergency cases.

We spoke with five members of staff on duty during our inspection who all expressed concerns at the level of staffing. However, we found all patient targets were met and there had been no incidents reported regarding patient’s welfare needs not being met due to a lack of staff.

We found there were a variety of quality assurance systems in place to assess and monitor the quality of service provided. We also found quality assurance systems in place to assess and manage risks. However we found some minor improvements were needed to maximise the potential of these systems.