Health in Menopause

Updated 9 May 2022

Health in Menopause Limited is registered with the CQC to provide medical services to patients. The service has a website at https://www.healthinmenopause.co.uk/

Health in Menopause Limited is a private limited company located in a privately owned fully serviced office. Dr A Duffy is a sole trader who is the only director, the registered manager and GP providing the clinical care. There are no other staff employed within the service. Administration support, relating to clinic bookings and telephone call monitoring is provided through a service level agreement as part of the lease with the building’s owners.

The service provides face to face, online video or telephone consultations with a doctor specialising in the treatment of menopause symptoms.

The service offers a range of blood tests and prescribed medicines to patients. It works collaboratively with the patients’ own registered NHS GP practices to ensure continuity of care.

Appointments can be made by telephone, booked online and the facility is available to email for queries. Fast track appointments are available. Clinic days are Monday to Thursday 9am to 5:30pm.

The service is registered with CQC to carry out the regulated activities of treatment of disease, disorder or injury and diagnostic and screening procedures.

How we inspected this service

This inspection was carried out both remotely and by visiting the providers location.

This included:

• Visiting the providers location.
• Reviewing information provided to us before our site visit.
• Reviewing patient feedback.

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 May 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 Health in Menopause on 14 April 2022. This is the first time this service has been inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) following its registration as a new service in July 2020.

Health in Menopause is a private menopause clinic in Nottingham. The service provides consultations, treatment and advice by an experienced doctor specialising in the treatment of menopause symptoms. The service offers face to face, online and telephone appointments to women across the East Midlands and beyond.

Dr Alice Duffy is a sole trader, the only director, General Practitioner (GP) and the CQC registered manager. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the CQC to manage the service. 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 reviewed feedback provided by 62 patients on the providers website before our inspection and during our onsite visit we saw surveys that were analysed on a three monthly basis.

Our key findings were:

• We found evidence to uphold the provision of safe care and treatment. Procedures for medicines management were robust to support online prescribing and ongoing monitoring.
• The provider worked within evidence-based guidance, whilst providing individualised care, and the provider was British Menopause Society trained.
• There was an established programme of quality improvement and clinical audit to demonstrate the efficacy of patient outcomes.
• There were proactive communication channels with the patients’ registered NHS GPs to ensure continuity of care.
• We found that the service was caring and compassionate towards patients and we observed many positive comments received from those who had used the service.
• The service was easily available and accessible for this dedicated patient group, including information freely available on the providers website.
• We found that the service had strong leadership from an experienced, committed and patient-centred clinical provider.
• The service sought support with all aspects of governance through appropriate dedicated menopause associations and expert peers.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• The provider should source feedback on the quality of clinical care patients received and any improvements in health.

• The provider should ensure they have records that provide assurance that the defibrillator is regularly checked by the owner of the building.

• The provider should embed the new vision and values statement with a strategy to monitor achievement.

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