Walk-in & Urgent Treatment Centres on Merseyside

There is a specific kind of Sunday afternoon panic that any parent of small children on Merseyside will recognise. Somebody has developed a hacking cough or fallen off a bike, the GP doesn’t open until Monday and A&E is out of the question unless things are properly serious. The right answer, most of the time, is the nearest walk-in or urgent treatment centre. The catch is that Merseyside has around a dozen of them. They are spread across five boroughs, open at different times, belong to different NHS trusts and are not all authorised to do the same things once you are through the door.

This is a guide to all of them. Nothing here replaces calling 111 first. The 111 operators will match a specific problem on a specific day to the right service better than any web guide can and can also book you a UTC appointment slot in some cases rather than making you queue on arrival.

One question you might have is around whether or not there is a difference between a UTC and a walk-in.

There is a difference between an urgent treatment centre and a walk-in centre and it matters if you might need an x-ray or a prescription. UTCs are the newer NHS designation and are generally set up to do more. A GP is on site for part of the day, x-ray facilities are usually available (though not always around the clock) and staff can prescribe medication and issue referrals for a decent chunk of what people would otherwise go to A&E for. Walk-in centres are the older, lighter model, which are usually nurse-led and focused on minor illnesses and injuries.

Both places will happily see you for a sore throat or a bad cut, but if you are dealing with something that might need imaging or antibiotics, the UTC is the safer place to head.

Liverpool

Liverpool has four sites, made up of two urgent treatment centres and two walk-in centres. They are all run by Mersey Care and open from 8am to 8pm every day of the year, Christmas Day included. Central booking is 0300 100 1004 for the two that use it.

Old Swan Urgent Treatment Centre

• Location: Crystal Close, Liverpool, L13 2GA
• Type: Urgent Treatment Centre
• Hours: 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, 365 days a year
• Phone: 0300 100 1004

Notes: On-road parking only, with a small number of on-site disabled bays.

Garston Urgent Treatment Centre

• Location: 32 Church Road, Garston, Liverpool, L19 2LW
• Type: Urgent Treatment Centre
• Hours: 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, 365 days a year
• Phone: 0151 295 9000

Notes: The NHS Cheshire and Merseyside page specifically mentions that Garston does not have on-site disabled parking, so plan accordingly if that matters to you.

Liverpool City Centre Walk-in Centre

• Location: Ground floor, Linda McCartney Centre, Prescot Street, Liverpool, L7 8XP
• Type: Walk-in centre
• Hours: 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, 365 days a year
• Phone: 0151 247 6500

Notes: Sits next to the Royal Liverpool. The Q-Park multi-storey on Epworth Street (L6 1LY) is the nearest paid parking and has around 20 accessible bays spread across three floors.

Smithdown Children’s Walk-in Centre

• Location: Smithdown Road, Liverpool, L15 2LQ
• Type: Children’s walk-in centre
• Hours: 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, 365 days a year
• Phone: 0300 100 1004

Notes: For children only, and the only paediatric-specific walk-in service on the NHS Cheshire and Merseyside list for the region.

Wirral

Wirral has one UTC at Arrowe Park, with the longest opening hours of any urgent-care site on the peninsula, plus two walk-in centres in Wallasey and Eastham. All three are run by Wirral Community Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust. The Eastham site has been operating on reduced services during a temporary change, so it’s worth ringing before you travel if that is your closest option.

Arrowe Park Urgent Treatment Centre

• Location: Arrowe Park Hospital, Arrowe Park Road, Upton, Wirral, CH49 5PE
• Type: Urgent Treatment Centre
• Hours: 8am to 10pm, seven days a week, 365 days a year
• Phone: 0151 201 4190

Notes: Two hours longer than any other Merseyside urgent treatment centre and worth remembering for the sort of late-evening problem that is not quite an A&E job. Parking is charged at Arrowe Park, so the free spaces at the other two Wirral walk-ins do not apply here.

Victoria Central Walk-in Centre & Minor Injuries

• Location: Mill Lane, Wallasey, Wirral, CH44 5UF
• Type: Walk-in centre with minor injuries
• Hours: 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, 365 days a year
• Phone: 0151 201 4190

Notes: X-ray on site from 8:30am to 7:30pm. Free on-site parking.

Eastham Walk-in Centre

• Location: 31 Eastham Rake, Birkenhead, Wirral, CH62 9AN
• Type: Walk-in centre
• Hours: 12pm to 8pm most days, but closed on Christmas Day and Boxing Day
• Phone: 0151 201 4190

Notes: The Wirral Community Health and Care Trust page still references temporary changes that saw Eastham’s walk-in services redirected to Arrowe Park and Victoria Central. The NHS Cheshire and Merseyside list shows Eastham as open on reduced hours, but check with the trust before setting off if this is where you were counting on going. Free parking on site when open.

Knowsley

Knowsley has three sites, all open 8am to 8pm every day of the year, which are an Urgent Treatment Centre at St Chad’s in Kirkby, which was upgraded from a walk-in centre in recent years and now covers x-rays and prescribing, plus two walk-in centres in Halewood and Huyton.

Kirkby Urgent Treatment Centre

• Location: St Chad’s Clinic, St Chad’s Drive, Kirkby, L32 8RE
• Type: Urgent Treatment Centre
• Hours: 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, 365 days a year
• Phone: 0151 244 3065

Notes: The upgrade from walk-in to UTC gave Kirkby the authority to do diagnostics, urine tests, x-rays and to prescribe medication for a wider set of conditions than the two Knowsley walk-in centres can. Limited free parking on the St Chad’s site.

Halewood Walk-in Centre

• Location: Roseheath Drive, Halewood, Liverpool, L26 9UH
• Type: Walk-in centre
• Hours: 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, 365 days a year
• Phone: 0151 244 3533

Notes: Limited on-site parking.

Huyton Walk-in Centre

• Location: Nutgrove Villa, Westmoreland Road, Huyton, L36 6GA
• Type: Walk-in centre
• Hours: 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, 365 days a year
• Phone: 0151 244 3150

Notes: Free on-site parking.

Sefton

Sefton is a borough with just one urgent-care site, which is the Urgent Treatment Centre at Litherland, run by Mersey Care and covering the south of the borough in particular. Anyone in Southport or Formby who cannot get to Litherland and does not want A&E is generally directed to their GP first, or to Southport District General for anything that needs urgent hospital-grade attention.

Litherland Urgent Treatment Centre

• Location: Hatton Hill Road, Sefton, L21 9JN
• Type: Urgent Treatment Centre
• Hours: 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, 365 days a year
• Phone: 0151 475 4667

Notes: Limited free on-site parking.

St Helens

St Helens has one UTC, at the Millennium Centre in the middle of town. It sits on Corporation Street rather than at St Helens Hospital itself, which catches people out on a semi-regular basis.

St Helens Urgent Treatment Centre

• Location: Millennium Centre, Corporation Street, St Helens, WA10 1HJ
• Type: Urgent Treatment Centre
• Hours: 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Patients arriving in the final 30 minutes may be triaged and given follow-up advice rather than seen.
• Phone: 01744 627 400

Notes: A GP is on site Monday to Friday, roughly 11am to 7pm, though the hours can vary. X-ray runs Monday to Friday 9am to 7pm, and weekends and bank holidays 9am to 5pm. Blood tests are by appointment only via the main phone number. Limited free parking on site, plus a pay-and-display car park on Hall Street (WA10 1DU) as overflow.

Things to Think About

If something is properly serious, such as chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness on one side of the body, heavy bleeding or a child not responding as they should, the answer is 999 and A&E, not a UTC. The urgent treatment centres are equipped for a very significant slice of what walks through A&E, but they are not equipped for genuine medical emergencies.

If you live in Speke, Halewood or the eastern edges of Knowsley, it can be worth knowing about the Runcorn and Widnes UTCs, both just outside Merseyside in Halton, and both open 8am to 9pm every day of the year. Neither is on the Merseyside list proper, but they are reachable in twenty minutes from a lot of south Merseyside, and their extra evening hour occasionally makes them the better place to head.

All of the addresses, opening hours and phone numbers here come from the NHS Cheshire and Merseyside master list of urgent care sites as it stood in mid-2026. Individual trust pages sometimes carry slightly different details for the same centre, so if you’re unsure, it’s worth calling ahead.

The Eastham walk-in centre has been operating on reduced hours during what the Wirral trust described as a temporary change to urgent care services on the peninsula, so ring before setting off if Eastham is where you were planning to head. Its status could change again either way.

Site categories do change every now and then. Walk-in centres get upgraded to urgent treatment centres as they take on x-ray, diagnostics or a resident GP and, more rarely, UTCs can head in the other direction. If the specific service that you need, such as a prescription, an x-ray or a GP opinion, is what will decide the trip, check with the centre by phone before you travel rather than assuming the sign on the door still says the same thing it did when this site was written.