Harpenden Skin Clinic

Updated 21 April 2020

The provider Harpenden Aesthetics Ltd provides private health care clinic services to patients with skin conditions from the location Harpenden Skin Clinic, in Harpenden, Hertfordshire. The service website is: https://harpendenskinclinic.com/

The services are offered through a pay as you go scheme. Currently the clinic sees up to 50 patients per week, but not all appointments are related to the provision of regulated activities.

There is a female registered nurse who is also an independent prescriber who provides the regulated activities. They are supported by a practice manager and a team of administrative and reception staff.

The Harpenden Skin Clinic operates from a two storey premises. There is car parking outside with adequate disabled parking available.

Harpenden Skin Clinic is open Tuesday to Saturday and operates varied opening times. The core hours are between 8.30am until 4pm Tuesday to Saturday. Late consultations are offered on Tuesday until 8pm, on Wednesday until 6pm, on Thursday until 9pm and on Saturday until 5pm.

This service is not required to offer an out of hours service. Patients who need medical assistance out of operating hours are requested to seek assistance from alternative services. This is detailed in patient literature supplied by the service as well as verbally communicated to the patient during a consultation.

How we inspected this service

Prior to the inspection, we reviewed all information available including the provider website, the previous report, information provided to us by the provider and intelligence we gathered from other sources, including stake holders.

The method we used to inspect included being open to talking to people using the service and their relatives, interviewing staff, observations and review 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 21 April 2020

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 25 February 2020 at Harpenden Skin Clinic, Hertfordshire. This was part of our inspection programme, to rate independent health services throughout England.

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

The provider Harpenden Aesthetics Ltd provides private health care services to patients with skin conditions from the location Harpenden Skin Clinic, in Harpenden, Hertfordshire.

Harpenden Aesthetics Ltd is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of some, but not all, of the services it provides. There are some exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of regulated activities and services and these are set out in Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Therefore, we were only able to inspect the provision of services covered by CQC regulations during this inspection. These services include nurse led prescribed treatments for skin conditions such as Acne and Rosacea, and treatment of excessive sweating (Hyperhidrosis).

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.

Our key findings were :

• Services provided were organised and delivered to meet patients’ needs.
• Systems were in place to provide care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm. At the time of our inspection, records of vaccinations in line with current Public Health England (PHE) guidance were not available for some non clinical staff. After our inspection the provider sent us documentary evidence that confirmed staff vaccinations had been updated.
• There were quality improvement activities to review the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care provided.
• Patient feedback highlighted a high level of satisfaction with the services received.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Take action to ensure that staff vaccinations are maintained as per the Public Health England (PHE) guidance and the recently initiated Harpenden Skin Clinic health clearance, screening and immunisations policy.

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