The Skin to Love Clinic

Updated 27 February 2023

The Skin to Love Clinic is the sole location operated by the provider The Skin to Love Clinic Limited. It is located at:

13-15 Chequer Street

St Albans

Hertfordshire

AL1 3YJ

www.theskintoloveclinic.co.uk

The Skin to Love Clinic is registered with the CQC to provide the following regulated activities:

• Diagnostic and screening procedures
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury
• Surgical Procedures.

Services within the scope of registration are mole removal by minor surgery, blood test, thread lifting procedures and skin related services, including acne consultations. The Skin to Love Clinic registered in November 2019 and is registered to treat adults and children from 13-18 years old.

The Skin to Love Clinic operates Monday from 10am to 5pm,Tuesday,Wednesday,Friday; Thursday from 10am to 7pm; Saturday from 10am to 6pm and Sunday from 10am to 2pm. Patients can book an appointment by phone. The service does not formally provide a service outside of these hours.

The clinic is on two floors and compromises four treatment rooms, a waiting room, reception area, toilet facilities and administrative areas. There is no lift.

The clinic employs an advanced nurse practitioner who undertakes minor surgery. In addition, the clinic manager undertakes regulated activities with the support of two independent nurse prescribers. The clinic employs a beauty therapist and a team of reception and administrative staff.

How we inspected this 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 27 February 2023

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 The Skin to Love Clinic on 30 January 2023. The service was registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in November 2019. We carried out this first inspection as part of our regulatory functions. The inspection was undertaken to check whether the service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008 ( Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

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 general exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of service and these are set out in Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

The Skin to Love Clinic is registered with the CQC to provide 3 regulated activities:

• Diagnostic and screening procedures
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury
• Surgical Procedures.

The services that are within scope of registration include mole removal by minor surgery, blood tests, platelet rich plasma treatment, thread lifting procedures and skin related services, including acne consultations.

The Skin to Love Clinic provides a range of non-surgical cosmetic interventions, for example Botox and fillers for cosmetic reasons which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.

The clinic owner 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.

We did not speak directly to people using the service on the day of the inspection.

Our key findings were:

• The service had safety systems and process in place to keep people safe. There were systems to identify, monitor and manage risks.
• Systems and processes existed to monitor, detect and reduce the risk of infection.
• Staff were clear about their role and responsibilities and maintained their skills and competencies through training and professional development.
• Clinical records were written clearly and contained accurate information.
• Evidence-based best practice guidance was followed when providing treatment to patients.
• Staff understood the legislation around gaining consent to treatment from patients and we found this was documented in all the clinical records we reviewed.
• Patient feedback confirmed people found the staff caring and professional.
• The clinic website was informative and included details about the treatment offered, prices and testimonials.
• The service focused on the needs of patients.
• The leadership and governance arrangements promoted good quality care.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Implement a specific policy for checking parental authority.
• Continue to develop a fully integrated electronic clinical records system.
• Increase audit activity and use the findings to drive improvement in the quality of service for patients.
• Review the processes in place to manage, monitor and address current and future risk.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

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