Archived: Weightmedics - North Harrow

This service is rated as Requires improvement overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Requires improvement

Are services effective? – Requires improvement

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Weightmedics – North Harrow under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act (HSCA) 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This was part of our inspection programme to check whether the service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and to rate the service.

Weightmedics - North Harrow provides weight loss services, including prescribing medicines and dietary advice to support weight reduction. The Nurse Director 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.

Our key findings were:

• The provider took action to review and prevent the future occurrence of adverse events and ensured that learning was shared with staff.
• The provider had robust systems for managing recruitment, induction and training updates for staff.

The areas where the provider MUST make improvements are:

• Ensure that care and treatment is provided in a safe way.

The areas where the provider SHOULD make improvements are:

• Only supply unlicensed medicines against valid special clinical needs of an individual patient, where there is no suitable licensed medicine available.
• Make a clear record of the rationale when a different approach to national guidance is taken in order to protect patient safety.
• Develop processes for managing medicines stock count discrepancies for all staff to follow.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care