Archived: Kings Private Clinic

Updated 23 April 2020

King Private Clinic has a total of four sites across London and Kent. We carried out an announced comprehensive reinspection at the provider head office location on the 27 February 2020. This clinic is located on the first floor of 602 High Road in Ilford. It is very close to Seven Kings rail station, local bus stops and has a local car park nearby. The clinic comprises of a reception area, an office, a waiting room and a consultation room. Access to the clinic is via a staircase to the first floor of the building. The clinic lacks step free access. A toilet is available in the clinic. There is a doctor, a clinic manager, a receptionist, and an account clerk employed at the service.

The clinic provides slimming advice and prescribes medicines to support weight reduction. It is a private service for adults. It is open for walk ins on Tuesdays 10am to 2pm, Thursdays 10am to 1.30pm and 2.30pm to 6.30pm and Sundays 10am to 12.30pm.

The clinic is usually staffed by a receptionist and a doctor. If for any reason, a shift is not filled by the doctor or receptionist, staff from other locations are brought in to provide cover. In addition, staff work closely with colleagues based at the other clinic locations. On the day of inspection, the doctor, the registered manager, the receptionist and the owner were present. We spoke to all staff that were present.

How we inspected this service

Prior to the inspection, we reviewed information about the service, including the previous inspection report and information given to us by the provider. We also spoke to staff, people using the service and reviewed a range of documents.

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 23 April 2020

This service is rated as Requires improvement overall. (Previous inspection September 2019 – Inadequate).

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Requires improvement

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Requires improvement

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Kings Private Clinic under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act (HSCA) 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was carried out to follow up on breaches of regulations identified at the last inspection. CQC previously inspected the service on 12 September 2019 and asked the provider to make improvements regarding breaches to regulation 12 and regulation 17. Under regulation 12, we found that the provider did not have oversight of staff training, a system to manage complaints. We also found that medicines were not always prescribed in accordance with prescribing protocols and information was unavailable as to the prescribing decisions made. Under regulation 17, the provider did not have an effective system in place to monitor the quality of the service provided. We checked these areas as part of this comprehensive inspection and found that some had been resolved, however further improvements were required.

Kings Private Clinic provides weight loss services, including prescribing medicines and dietary advice to support weight reduction.

The clinic manager 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.

During the inspection we spoke to three patients. We were unable to obtain feedback via comment cards because of the short notice of the inspection. Patients were happy with the service and liked the fact that the weight loss advice they now received was more holistic.

Our key findings were:

•The prescribing was found to be in line with the prescribing protocol for the service.

•The provider had implemented a complaints policy and a system for managing them.

•The provider did not have a system in place for reviewing the effectiveness of treatments provided at the clinic.

The areas where the provider must make improvements are:

•Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.

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.

•Consider systems for the management of medicines stock

•Review the system for the management and actioning of patient safety alerts.

•Consider arrangements in place to support people who do not have English as a first language.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care