Park Lane Medical

Updated 7 June 2022

Park Lane Medical is a private service which specialises in intravenous vitamin therapy which was available to any fee-paying client. The practice does not see anyone under the age of 18.

Park Lane Medical is located at 33 Curzon Street, London, W1J 7TR. It is based within the basement of a pharmacy. The basement premises consists of a clinical room, waiting room, toilet and kitchen. The service does not have a lift. Patient’s with mobility issues are referred to other organisations within the local area. There are good transport links with regular buses and local tube stations.

The service is registered by the Care Quality Commission to provide the regulated activities treatment of disease. Care provided in the practice, within the scope of CQC registration is limited to occasional blood testing and prescribing.

The service is run and managed by a single doctor with no other staff. Currently the service is used by approximately five to eight patients a month. Patients are mostly referred to the service by local hotels and businesses. Many of the patients are visiting from different countries.

The service is available throughout the week on a pre-bookable basis from 8am - 8pm.

We gathered and reviewed pre-inspection information before the site visit. On the day of the inspection we spoke with the GP. We also reviewed a wide range of documentary evidence including patient records, policies, written protocols and guidelines and training records.

The sole GP was the CQC 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.

Updated 7 June 2022

This service is rated as Good overall.

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 Park Lane Medical on 16 May 2022. This was the service’s first inspection since it registered with the Care Quality Commission in 2019.

This service 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.

The service specialises in intravenous vitamin therapy intended to promote and sustain wellbeing. We were told the vitamin therapy was not administered to treat any medical conditions or vitamin deficiency. The therapy was used by clients who wanted a vitamin and minerals boost. Some examples given to us included clients who wanted to detox, rehydrate, overcome the effects of alcohol consumption, increase focus and reduce jetlag. Intravenous vitamin therapy is not within CQC scope of registration, therefore, we did not inspect or report on this part of the service. The scope of our inspection was limited to the occasional prescribing of low risk medicine and blood testing. Patients could request a blood test prior to vitamin therapy however this was not mandatory and very few patients had requested it to date. We also reviewed all of the medicine prescribed to date, and found the doctor had only prescribed either asthma inhalers or antihistamine medicine. The doctor explained to us that these were one-off emergency prescription requests. We were told the service had a policy for not prescribing medium or high risk medicines.

Our key findings were:

• The service provided care in a way that kept patients safe. The service had systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. If they did happen, the service had polices to ensure they learned from them and improved their processes.
• The service ensured effective care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients were able to access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
• The service had adequate policies and procedures in place to ensure safe services and premises.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Consider carrying out clinical audits.
• Obtain patient feedback regarding the service.

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