Archived: Advanced Visioncare Limited

Updated 2 March 2018

Advanced Visioncare is operated by Advanced Visioncare Limited. The service opened in 2004. It is a private service in London. The service primarily serves the communities of London. It also accepts patient referrals from outside this area.

The location has had a registered manager in post since 2004.

Updated 2 March 2018

Advanced Visioncare is operated by Advanced Visioncare Limited. The service provides refractive eye surgery for self-funded patients over 18 years old. Facilities include two surgical theatres, two assessment rooms, a consultation room, recovery room and diagnostic facilities.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the announced part of the inspection on 19 September 2017 along with an unannounced visit on 10 October 2017.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

We regulate refractive eye surgery but we do not currently have a legal duty to rate them when they are provided as a single specialty service. We highlight good practice and issues that service providers need to improve and take regulatory action as necessary.

We found the following issues that the service provider needs to improve:

• Medicines were not stored safely and staff were not following the service’s own policy on medicines management.
• The access to theatres was not secure; this could give access to unauthorised individuals and medication could be tampered with or stolen.
• Patient information leaflets, documents, and consent forms were only provided in English.
• There were no formal interpreting services available. Patients were advised to bring their own interpreter to the clinic, or use a family member.
• There was no organisational vision or strategy.
• The consent policy did not state a “cooling off” period prior to procedure. The new Professional Standards for Refractive surgery (April 2017) recommends a “cooling off” period of one week, less so in exceptional circumstances. However, the service provided patients with a terms and conditions document, which supplied information on the procedures available and the associated risks and benefits which patients took away with them. We also saw there was a period of a day between the confirmed consent with the surgeon and actual treatment.

However, we also found the following areas of good practice:

• Patients received care in visibly clean and suitably maintained premises and their care was supported with the right equipment.
• The staffing levels and skills mix was sufficient to meet patients’ needs and staff assessed and responded to patient risks.
• All staff had completed their mandatory training and annual appraisals. Care and treatment was provided by suitably trained, competent staff that worked well as part of a multidisciplinary team.
• There was clear visible leadership within the services. Staff were positive about the culture within the service and the level of support they received.

Following this inspection, we issued the provider with a Warning Notice for breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 Regulations. We told the provider that it must take action to comply with the regulations by 1 December 2017.

We also told the provider that it should make other improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. Details are at the end of the report.

Following the Warning Notice, the provider submitted evidence of improvement to the CQC and we returned to review progress and found these improvements had been made.

Amanda Stanford

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals

Updated 2 March 2018

We regulate this service but we do not currently have a legal duty to rate it. We highlight good practice and issues that service providers need to improve and take regulatory action as necessary.