Archived: The Bronte Clinic

Updated 20 March 2023

The Bronte Clinic is an independent healthcare service specialising in women’s health and wellbeing. The service is located in central London at 9a Wilbraham Place, Belgravia London SW1X 9AE. It is housed within a shared building in a mixed residential and commercial location. The location is conveniently accessible by public transport and controlled parking is available on surrounding streets. More information about the service can be found on their website; www.thebronteclinic.com.

The provider is a partnership consisting of two medical doctors who carry out the regulated activities along with a third doctor. Not all of the activities carried out by the provider require registration with the Care Quality Commission. For example, as well as advice and treatment around the menopause, general GP services including health screening and family planning, the service also provided cosmetic treatments which do not require registration with the Care Quality Commission.

The service’s opening hours were 9am to 1pm on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Appointments were available remotely as well as face to face. Services were available to patients aged over 18 years only.

How we inspected this service

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 March 2023

This service is rated as Good overall. This was the service’s first inspection since registration with the Care Quality Commission.

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 The Bronte Clinic as part of our inspection programme. This was the service’s first inspection since registration with the Care Quality Commission.

The Bronte Clinic is an independent healthcare service specialising in women’s health and wellbeing.

This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of some, but not all, of the services it provides. There are some exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of regulated activities and services and these are set out in Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. The Bronte Clinic provides a range of non-surgical cosmetic interventions, for example dermal fillers and chemical peels which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.

Our key findings were:

• The service was providing safe care. There were clear systems for managing risks.
• The service was providing effective care. The effectiveness and appropriateness of the care provided was reviewed. There was some evidence of quality improvement activity.
• The service was providing caring services.
• Staff treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect. Feedback from people who used the service was positive.
• The service was providing responsive care in accordance with the relevant regulations. People were supported to access the service when they wanted to. There were systems and processes in place to manage feedback.
• The service was providing well-led care. Leaders have the capacity and skills to deliver high-quality, sustainable care. They demonstrated a vision to deliver high quality care and promote good outcomes for patients.

Whilst we did not find any breaches of the regulations, the areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review and improve the scope of quality improvement activity including audits.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services