Poland Medical - Coventry

Updated 30 August 2019

Poland Medical is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) as an independent provider of medical services. Both adults and children are treated at the Coventry location. Poland Medical, Coventry, is registered with the CQC to provide the regulated activities of diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

Poland Medical provides non-urgent services to a population which is mainly Polish. Services are available to people on a pre-bookable appointment basis. The clinic employs doctors on a sessional basis most of whom are specialists who provide a range of services from gynaecology to psychiatry. All clinicians are fluent in the Polish language. Medical consultations and diagnostic tests are provided by the clinic. No surgical procedures are carried out.

The clinic employs 14 doctors all of whom are registered with the General Medical Council (GMC) with a licence to practise. The doctors work across both the West London and Coventry locations. Other staff include the registered manager, the duty manager and reception staff. Poland Medical is a designated body (an organisation that provides regular appraisals and support for revalidation of doctors) with one of the specialist doctors as the Responsible Officer (an individual within a designated body who has overall responsibility for helping with revalidation). The Responsible Officer is also the medical lead for the clinic.

Poland Medical is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 10am until 6.30pm. A cardiologist and a gynaecologist offer appointments on a Thursday evening from 4pm until 7pm. Appointments may be arranged on other days by prior arrangement via the West London clinic. The provider is not required to offer an out of hours service or emergency care. Patients who require emergency medical assistance or out of hours services are requested to contact NHS Direct or attend the local accident and emergency department.

Details about Poland Medical are available to download from the website: .

How we inspected this service

During our inspection we spoke with the owner of the service, two doctors, one of whom was the RO, and one of the reception staff. We also viewed procedures and policies which related to compliance with the remaining condition served in the Notice of Decision as a result of findings during the January 2019 inspection.

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 30 August 2019

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Poland Medical Coventry as part of our inspection programme to rate independent health providers and to follow up on a condition which was issued because of a breach of regulations.

The CQC inspected the service on 13 January 2019 and asked the provider to make improvements regarding strengthening established systems and processes to ensure that accurate, complete and contemporaneous medical records were being maintained securely for each service user. A Notice of Decision with one condition was issued as a result of the findings at the January 2019 inspection. We checked all areas as part of this comprehensive inspection and found that they had been resolved.

Poland Medical is an independent provider of medical services and treats both adults and children at their location in Coventry. Services are provided primarily to Polish people who live in the UK and who choose to access the services as an adjunct to the NHS services for which they are eligible to register.

The owner of the service 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.

We received 15 comment cards, which were all very complimentary about the standard of services provided and the professionalism of the doctors and non-clinical staff.

Our key findings were :

• The increased focus on continuous learning and improvement that we noted at the January inspection had been maintained.
• The Responsible Officer (RO), who was the clinical lead, carried out regular audits of the patients’ medical records which were completed by each doctor. The RO had examined 157 medical records in the three months since April 2019 and we noted a marked improvement in the overall standard of medical record keeping. We therefore found that the condition which related to the standard of clinical oversight had been met.
• We noted that patient consent for care and treatment was recorded for each consultation.
• Overall governance arrangements had been strengthened.
• Discussion of significant events and complaints were standing items on the agenda of every clinical meeting.
• Quality improvement activity had focused on driving up the standard of medical record keeping, so that it was consistent for all doctors.
• The services provided by the clinic fulfilled a useful function for the Polish expatriate community and were much appreciated by patients.
• Patients were able to access specialist doctors very quickly.
• The provider had added Family Planning to its Regulated Activities since the January inspection.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Consistently record the rationale for not sharing information with the patient’s NHS GP, especially in relation to children.
• Review the scope of quality improvement activities to include theme or topic based clinical audits.
• Review the system for formally recording reflection or learning points from significant events.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care