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Hertsmere · East of England

The Grove Medical Centre

The Grove Medical Centre has a Practice Grade of 78.7 out of 100, based on 114 answers in the 2026 GP Patient Survey and NHS appointment data. That is 1.5 above the England average (77.2) and place 5 of 10 graded practices in Hertsmere. 94% of appointments took place within two weeks of booking (August 2026).

Updated with the 2026 GP Patient Survey · Appointments: August 2026

Practice Grade

Practice Grade

78.7/ 100

1.5 above the England average (77.2)

Based on 114 answers of 588 asked (19%)

Patients: cannot be told apart from the England average

The margin of error for patients’ answers reaches the England average, so the difference may come down to who happened to answer. How to read the margin of error.

Combined from patient experience (76.0, from the GP Patient Survey) and access (84.8, from NHS appointment and phone data). How we grade.

Why this grade?

Two parts, each compared with England; the share says how much each part counts:

  • Patient experience76.0 · weighs 70%
  • Access84.8 · weighs 30%

Practice Grade: 78.7

At a glance

Flu vaccination in Hertfordshire, winter 2025 to 2026

76.6% of patients aged 65 and over registered with GP practices in Hertfordshire had a flu vaccine between 1 September 2025 and 28 February 2026 (178,623 of 233,191). England: 74.5%.

UKHSA publishes flu vaccine uptake for counties and unitary authorities, not for districts. These figures are for Hertfordshire, the county that Hertsmere is in.

WhoHertfordshireEngland
Aged 65 and over178,623 of 233,19176.6%74.5%
Under 65 in a clinical risk group83,172 of 189,46043.9%40.6%
Pregnant women5,349 of 13,72939.0%38.4%
Children aged 26,282 of 12,92048.6%43.5%
Children aged 36,903 of 13,94449.5%44.8%

The counts follow the GP practice, not where people live. They include vaccinations given in GP practices, pharmacies and other places that are recorded in the GP record. 99.3% of practices sent data. UKHSA says the number counted as pregnant may be too high, so uptake among pregnant women is probably understated.

This card shows flu only. We have not found local authority figures for last winter’s COVID-19 vaccination from UKHSA.

Source: UK Health Security Agency, Seasonal influenza vaccine uptake in GP patients: winter season 2025 to 2026 (final data, published 28 May 2026). Open Government Licence v3.0.

What patients say

The share of patients who gave a positive answer, from the 2026 GP Patient Survey. The tick is England.

The wider the line around the dot, the less certain the figure, usually because fewer people answered. Read more about the method.

  • Overall experience114 answers

    England: 76.7%

  • Contacting the practice111 answers

    England: 72.6%

  • Being listened to107 answers

    England: 87.1%

  • Confidence and trust107 answers

    England: 92.7%

  • Needs met104 answers

    England: 90.2%

  • Wait for an appointment99 answers

    England: 69.3%

Patients' answers, question by question

Every question from the 2026 GP Patient Survey that we show. None of them except overall experience is part of the grade.

Contacting the practice

  • Contacting the practice: patients describing their experience of contacting the practice as good

    111 answers

  • Getting through on the phone: patients saying it is easy to contact the practice on the phone

    106 answers

  • Reception and admin team: patients saying the reception and administrative team is helpful

    108 answers

  • Knowing the next step: patients who knew what the next step would be after contacting the practice

    111 answers

Seeing the same person

  • Having a preferred professional: patients who have a healthcare professional they prefer to see or speak to

    113 answers

  • Seeing your preferred professional: patients with a preferred healthcare professional who see or speak to them always, almost always or a lot of the time

    32 answers

Your last appointment

  • Wait for an appointment: patients who felt the wait for their last appointment was about right

    99 answers

  • Being listened to: patients saying the healthcare professional was good at listening to them

    107 answers

  • Care and concern: patients saying the healthcare professional was good at treating them with care and concern

    106 answers

  • Confidence and trust: patients who had confidence and trust in the healthcare professional

    107 answers

  • Involvement in decisions: patients saying they were involved as much as they wanted in decisions about their care

    101 answers

  • Needs met: patients saying their needs were met at their last appointment

    104 answers

Appointments

Within two weeks of booking
93.7% (August 2026, 4,194 appointments)
Calls answered
75.9% (August 2026, 3,906 calls)
England
87.7% within two weeks, 68.6% of calls answered

Month by month

The appointment part of the Practice Grade, month by month over the past year: the share of appointments that took place within two weeks of booking. The scale runs from 0 to 100%. A month without a figure is left empty, and we never fill it in.

Appointments within two weeks of booking
Appointments within two weeks of booking, month by month from September 2025 to August 2026.
MonthShare
September 202594.1%
October 202595.1%
November 202594.2%
December 202591.7%
January 202696.9%
February 202694.4%
March 202694.3%
April 202690.7%
May 202692.1%
June 202692.6%
July 202695.7%
August 202693.7%

93.7% in August 2026 (4,194 appointments). The same month, England as a whole had 87.7%.

Source: Appointments in General Practice, NHS England. Not a separate grade: the grade uses the latest month, as shown with the grade.

Time from booking to appointment

Routine appointments

Booked in advance for a problem that is not urgent.

Within 7 days of booking
31.0%
Within 14 days of booking
70.2%
More than 28 days after booking
4.1%
Appointments counted
861

Urgent (acute) appointments

Recorded by the practice as needing attention on the same day.

Took place on the day it was booked
92.5%
Within 7 days of booking
98.2%
Appointments counted
1,149

These are the general consultations in August 2026, with any member of staff, by how many days passed between booking and the appointment. They are not how long a patient waited after first getting in touch: a routine appointment is often booked ahead on purpose, or on a date the patient chose. Planned clinics, triage calls, medication reviews and similar are left out, and so are appointments with no recorded booking date. The practice, not NHS England, decides whether an appointment is routine or acute.

NHS England publishes these figures as official statistics in development, and its own national figures use the same split: urgent appointments on the day of booking, and routine ones within 7 and 14 days. Practices record appointments in different ways, so we show no England figure beside these monthly figures. The grade uses a wider count, NHS England’s own measure of appointments within two weeks, shown with the grade above.

Source: NHS England, Appointments in General Practice, August 2026.

Do they look after you?

Do you see the same person?

Seeing your preferred professional: 44.5% (England 41.9%), 32 answers.

Can you get through?

Getting through on the phone: 48.7% (England 56.9%), 106 answers.

Calls answered by the practice: 75.9% (August 2026), from NHS phone data.

Are you listened to?

Being listened to: 86.3% (England 87.1%), 107 answers.

Needs met: 91.9% (England 90.2%), 104 answers.

Contact and location

Not part of the grade

Location

Borehamwood Shopping Centre, Borehamwood, WD6 4PR
Show on a map

Source: NHS England Organisation Data Service, 20 October 2026.

Trend 2024–2026

2024–2026: better on overall experience.

From the GP Patient Survey. Ipsos redesigned the survey in 2024 and started a new series, so earlier years are not shown and not compared. The trend follows question 32, the share of patients who describe the practice as good (the survey part of the Practice Grade); years without a result are left blank. England as a whole: 73.9% in 2024, 75.4% in 2025 and 76.7% in 2026. Small ups and downs that could just as well reflect who happened to respond count as unchanged, not as a change.

  • Overall experience (question 32)

    Better 2024–2026 · 3 surveys

How we decide whether a practice has changed

Who answered

Questionnaires returned
114
Questionnaires sent
588
Response rate
19.4%

The survey is sent to a random sample of registered patients aged 16 and over. Some questions are answered by fewer people than others, which is why each question has its own number of answers.

Independent: no one can pay to change a result, a label or what is shown, and the site has no ties to GP practices, other care providers or public authorities. The grade uses open data only: the 2026 GP Patient Survey and NHS England’s appointment and phone data. Who runs the site.

Below are facts and context. None of it is part of the Practice Grade.

About the practice

Not part of the grade
CQC rating
Good (published 2017-01-31)
Registered patients
12,103 (1 October 2026)
Primary care network
Herts Five PCN

Registered patients

How many patients were registered with the practice on 1 October each year, and how old they are.

Since October 2019
−1,206 (−9%) (13,309 then)
Aged 0 to 14
19 in 100 (England 16, Hertsmere 17)
Aged 15 to 44
41 in 100 (England 41, Hertsmere 39)
Aged 45 to 64
27 in 100 (England 25, Hertsmere 26)
Aged 65 to 79
10 in 100 (England 13, Hertsmere 12)
Aged 80 or over
4 in 100 (England 5, Hertsmere 5)

A patient counts where they are registered, wherever they live. Lists grow when practices merge or new homes are built nearby, and get smaller when NHS England removes people who have moved away or died but were still on the list: NHS England says the fall of 105,684 patients in England in October 2026 came from that work. Hertsmere is the same count over every practice there. Source: NHS England, Patients Registered at a GP Practice, each October from 2019 to 2026.

Appointments

Appointments in August 2026
5,673
Booked for the same day
60.6%
Face to face
37.7%

All appointments in the practice’s appointment book that month, with any member of staff, whether the patient attended or not. “Same day” means the appointment took place on the day it was booked; it is not a waiting time, and NHS England says it cannot measure demand on its own. “Face to face” is how the practice recorded the appointment; the rest were by phone, video, online or home visit. Both shares leave out appointments where this was not recorded.

NHS England publishes these figures as official statistics in development. Practices record appointments in different ways, and some activity, such as some appointments run by the primary care network, is not included, so NHS England says the figures do not give a complete view of a practice’s work.

Source: NHS England, Appointments in General Practice, August 2026.

GPs, nurses and other staff

Full-time GPs per 1,000 patients
0.39 (England 0.63, Hertsmere 0.64)
Full-time nurses per 1,000 patients
0.12 (England 0.26, Hertsmere 0.14)
Other full-time clinical staff per 1,000 patients
0.51 (England 0.28, Hertsmere 0.26)
All GPs
4.7 full-time equivalent
Qualified permanent GPs
3.9 full-time equivalent
Registered patients per permanent GP
3,164

Full-time equivalent adds up the hours staff work, so two GPs working half the week count as one. The figures per 1,000 patients are our own calculation from the same NHS England file: the full-time equivalent divided by the registered patients, times 1,000. GPs include GPs in training and locums. Other clinical staff are those employed by the practice who see patients, such as pharmacists, healthcare assistants and physiotherapists; staff employed by the primary care network instead of the practice are not counted. Hertsmere and England are the same calculation over every practice there. Qualified permanent GPs leave out GPs in training and locums. Patients per permanent GP is our own calculation, not an NHS England figure: registered patients divided by the full-time equivalent of qualified permanent GPs. It does not count work done by locums, GPs in training, nurses, pharmacists or other staff.

Source: NHS England, General Practice Workforce, August 2026.

Friends and Family Test

Answers in June 2026
216
Answered “very good” or “good”
96.8%
Answered “poor” or “very poor”
0.9%

The test asks patients about their overall experience of the practice. NHS England says it is not meant for comparing practices: each practice chooses how to collect answers, anyone who uses the practice can answer (there is no random sample), and the results are not adjusted for differences between patients. So we show it as the practice’s own feedback, with no England figure beside it.

Source: NHS England, Friends and Family Test, GP practices, June 2026.

Diabetes, blood pressure, asthma and COPD

Not part of our grade

How many in 100 of the practice’s patients with each condition had the check or reached the level the guidelines aim for in 2025-26 (1 April to 31 March), from NHS England’s Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF). The figures describe how care is recorded and followed up, not how good the care is for any one patient, and they are not part of our grade.

Diabetes

Blood sugar (HbA1c) at 58 mmol/mol or lower
54 in 100 (704 patients, England 61, Hertsmere 60)
Blood pressure at 140/90 or lower
77 in 100 (638 patients, England 79, Hertsmere 78)
Feet checked in the last 12 months
60 in 100 (814 patients, England 79, Hertsmere 78)

High blood pressure

Blood pressure at 140/90 or lower, aged 79 or under
72 in 100 (1,546 patients, England 72, Hertsmere 73)
Blood pressure at 150/90 or lower, aged 80 or over
85 in 100 (397 patients, England 84, Hertsmere 86)

Asthma

Asthma review with a written action plan in the last 12 months
58 in 100 (626 patients, England 68, Hertsmere 66)

COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)

COPD review in the last 12 months
75 in 100 (185 patients, England 77, Hertsmere 79)

Patients are everyone on the practice’s register for the condition in the group the row names, including those the practice left out of its QOF target for personalised care reasons, such as someone who chose not to have the check. So a figure can be lower than the achievement the practice reports. With fewer than 10 patients in a group the row says the patients are too few instead. Hertsmere and England are the same calculation over every practice there. None of the figures is adjusted for how old or how unwell a practice’s patients are.

Source: NHS England, Quality and Outcomes Framework, 2025-26, indicators DM020, DM036, DM012, HYP008, HYP009, AST007 and COPD010. Open Government Licence v3.0.

Vaccinations and screening

Not part of our grade

How many of the practice’s patients in each group had childhood vaccinations or cervical screening, from NHS England’s Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) for 2025-26. These figures are not part of our grade. We show them as published and make no comparison between practices.

Childhood vaccinations

  • Babies at 8 months

    Babies who had at least 3 doses of a vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough before they were 8 months old.

    80.3% (94 of 117), likely range 72.2% to 86.5%. England: 88.7%.

  • Children at 18 months

    Children who had at least 1 dose of the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps and rubella) between 12 and 18 months old.

    72.6% (90 of 124), likely range 64.1% to 79.7%. England: 85.6%.

  • Children at 5 years

    Children who had the pre-school booster (diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and polio) and at least 2 doses of MMR between the ages of 1 and 5.

    74.8% (107 of 143), likely range 67.1% to 81.2%. England: 83.4%.

Cervical screening

  • Women aged 25 to 49

    Women eligible for cervical screening with an adequate test recorded in the last 3 years and 6 months.

    71.7% (1,640 of 2,287), likely range 69.8% to 73.5%. England: 66.3%.

  • Women aged 50 to 64

    Women eligible for cervical screening with an adequate test recorded in the last 5 years and 6 months.

    79.8% (818 of 1,025), likely range 77.2% to 82.1%. England: 75.4%.

The period is 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026: the children who reached the age in that year, and the women aged 25 to 64 at its end. Each figure is the number of patients with the vaccine or test recorded, out of everyone eligible. Eligible includes patients the practice has left out of the QOF target for personalised care reasons, for example someone who chose not to have it after talking it through, or who did not reply to invitations, so the percentage can be lower than the QOF achievement figure the practice reports. England is the same calculation over every practice.

The numbers are what the practice has on record. A vaccine or test given elsewhere only counts once it reaches that record. The likely range shows how far the percentage could move by chance when only a few patients are eligible; it is not a margin of error from a survey, because every eligible patient is counted.

Source: NHS England, Quality and Outcomes Framework, 2025-26, indicators VI001 to VI003, CS005 and CS006.

Antibiotic prescribing

Not part of our grade

The antibiotics this practice prescribed from April 2025 to March 2026, from NHS Business Services Authority prescribing data as published by the UK Health Security Agency and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. These figures are not part of our grade. Public health bodies aim to cut unnecessary antibiotic use because it helps bacteria become resistant to the drugs, but a figure cannot tell you whether any one prescription was needed. We show them as published, with England beside them, and make no comparison between practices.

  • Antibiotic items per STAR-PU

    One item is one antibiotic on a prescription. STAR-PU weights the practice’s list by age and sex, so practices with older or younger patients can be set side by side. We add the four quarters into one year.

    0.93 (6,232 items). England: 0.74.

  • Share that were broad-spectrum

    Cephalosporins, quinolones and co-amoxiclav, which the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities counts as broad-spectrum and aims to keep to a small share of all antibiotic items.

    10.4% (622 of 6,003 items). England: 8.1%.

Only items prescribed by the practice and dispensed in the community are counted. Items per STAR-PU allows for patients’ age and sex but not for illness, so a practice whose patients have more infections or other conditions can prescribe more for good reasons. The broad-spectrum share is not adjusted at all, and the source calls it a crude figure to treat with caution when comparing practices. England is the same calculation over every practice in the data.

Source: UK Health Security Agency and Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (Fingertips), antibiotic prescribing by GP practice, from NHS Business Services Authority data, April 2025 to March 2026.

What we cannot measure

  • The quality of the treatment itself: open data shows how patients describe their practice and how soon appointments take place, not clinical outcomes.
  • One doctor or nurse: the figures are for the whole practice.
  • Whether the practice can take you: that depends on its boundary and its list, which the practice decides.
  • This year’s changes: the survey ran in early 2026, and a new team or system since then is not in the figures.
Questions to ask the practice (3)

This does not show in the figures, but you can ask the practice yourself before you register.

  1. Does my address fall inside your boundary, and are you taking new patients?
  2. How do I book an appointment, and how soon can I usually see someone?
  3. Can I ask to see the same GP or nurse each time?

Other GP practices in Hertsmere

Similar GP practices in East of England

GP practices in the region with the nearest grade, in other areas.

Common questions

How good is The Grove Medical Centre?

The Grove Medical Centre has a Practice Grade of 78.7 out of 100, 1.5 above the England average (77.2), from 114 answers in the 2026 GP Patient Survey and NHS appointment data. The margin of error for patients’ answers reaches the England average, so the difference may come down to who happened to answer.

How soon can I get an appointment at The Grove Medical Centre?

In August 2026, 94% of appointments at The Grove Medical Centre took place within two weeks of booking. Time from booking is not the whole wait, and practices record appointments in different ways.

How do I register with The Grove Medical Centre?

Check that your address is inside the practice’s boundary, then register online, in the NHS App or on a paper form at the practice. You do not need to tell your current practice.

2026 GP Patient Survey: https://www.gp-patient.co.uk/
2024 GP Patient Survey: https://www.gp-patient.co.uk/
2025 GP Patient Survey: https://www.gp-patient.co.uk/
Contains information from NHS England, licenced under the current version of the Open Government Licence
Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026
Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2026
Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0
Contains information from the Care Quality Commission, licensed under the Open Government Licence. CQC must be acknowledged as the source of the data; CQC is not responsible for our analysis.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Antibiotic prescribing: UK Health Security Agency and Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (Fingertips), from NHS Business Services Authority prescribing data.
All sources and licences

Practice code (ODS): E82117