Dr Ito Clinic

Updated 15 December 2022

Takashi Ito (Dr Ito Clinic) is an independent provider of medical services in Westminster and treats adults over eighteen years of age. The service is located on Harley Street in central London. It shares the building with other healthcare services. The rooms used by the service consist of a reception and waiting area, an office, the doctor’s consulting room which includes a treatment room and a storeroom/office used by the healthcare assistants.

The service is led by a doctor who has specialised in pain management. They are supported by two healthcare assistants and a general manager. The majority of their patients are of Japanese origin.

The provider offers face to face consultations, examinations and treatment for the management of pain including diagnostic ultrasound scans for joints and muscles, minor surgical procedures including joint injections, epidural injections, ligament injections, nerve blocks, puncture and drainage. Procedures are carried out on-site with imaging carried out by a separate service.

The principal doctor is on the specialist register in the GMC (General Medical Council) for anaesthetics. Services are available to people on a pre-booked appointment basis Monday to Friday between 11am and 6pm.

Takashi Ito is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide the regulated activities diagnostic and screening procedures, surgical procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

How we inspected this service

In preparation for this inspection we asked the provider to supply us with information, reviewed information we hold about the service on our systems and asked for feedback from people who use the 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 15 December 2022

This service is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection May 2018 – unrated).

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 Dr Ito Clinic as part of our inspection programme. This was the service’s first inspection where they were given a rating.

Dr Ito Clinic is an independent provider of medical services specialising in pain management. The provider is an individual provider who is in day to day management of the service. Therefore there is no requirement for a registered manager to be in place.

During the inspection we did not speak directly with any patients, however we did receive feedback from patients about the service through our website. Feedback was received from 16 patients and was wholly positive.

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 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 the provision of sepsis training for all staff.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

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