Archived: Eye Doctors UK Limited

Updated 9 June 2021

Eye Doctors UK Limited is a service intended to provide acne treatment to private patients. We were told that following the previous inspection in November 2019, the service had not seen a patient until April 2021 when one patient had been seen.

The service has a website https://eyedoctorsukltd.co.uk/

The provider is registered with CQC to provide the regulated activity of treatment of disease, disorder or injury from a single location at 59 Church Gate, Loughborough, LE11 1UE.

Consultations are by prior telephone arrangement. The service has no regular opening times. The service is staffed by one doctor, supported by three administrative members of staff. The provider informed us these staff members did not participate in the delivery of the regulated activity.

Before visiting the service, we reviewed a range of information we hold about the service and asked the service to send us a range of information. Eye Doctors UK Limited provided us with informaiton following the inspection.

Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic we were unable to use comment cards at this time.

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 9 June 2021

This service is rated as Inadequate overall. (Previous inspection November 2019 – Inadequate)

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Inadequate

Are services effective? – Inspected but not rated

Are services caring? – Inspected but not rated

Are services responsive? – Inspected but not rated

Are services well-led? – Inspected but not rated

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Eye Doctors UK Limited in line with our inspection programme.Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the evidence was reviewed and staff interviews were carried out remotely following the site visit on the 20th April 2021.

At our previous inspection in 2019 we found breaches of regulation in relation to regulation 12 HSCA (RA) Regulations 2014 (safe care and treatment) and regulation 17 HSCA (RA) Regulations 2014 (good governance). The requirement notices issued in November 2019 included issues around medical emergencies and emergency medicines, a lack of clinical audits completed at the service, ineffective governance and leadership and concerns around risks not being safely managed. Whilst we did see improvement in systems for emergency medicines, we were not able to assess that improvements had been made in relation to the rest of the breaches in regulation.

Due to the service only treating one patient since our previous inspection, we were unable to rate effective, caring, responsive and well led at this inspection. Therefore, the previous ratings from November 2019 will continue to apply to the service for these key questions.

Eye Doctors UK Limited is an independent health provider to treat skin conditions such as acne.

Dr Bhojani-Lynch the registered manager for the service. 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:

• There had only been one patient treated at the service since our last inspection. Due to only having one consultation to review, we were unable to make a judgement that patients immediate and ongoing needs were always addressed as there was not enough evidence.
• Safeguarding policies were in place, however, they were not relevant to the service.
• There was no evidence of improvement within the service as there had been no significant events or complaints.
• There was a lack of forward planning for the service.
• There was no clear vision or strategy to deliver high quality care.
• There was a lack of processes to identify and monitor risks.
• There were no clinical audits completed at the service.
• We saw no evidence of discrimination when making care and treatment decisions.
• The service sought patient feedback following appointments.
• Appointments were flexible around patient’s needs.

The areas where the provider must make improvements as they are in breach of regulations are:

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.
• Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.

(Please see the specific details on action required at the end of this report).

This service was placed in special measures in November 2019 which will remain in place. Due to changes of registered manager within the service and the small number of patients seen, the provider has decided to become dormant. A further inspection will be conducted should the provider start operating again.

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