Archived: Kings Private Clinic Harrow

Updated 7 November 2019

Our inspection team was led by a CQC Pharmacist Specialist. The team also included another member of the CQC medicines team.

Kings Private Clinic has four sites across London and Kent. We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at the location in Harrow, Middlesex on 05 September 2019.

The service comprises of a reception area and consulting room on the ground floor of 65c Headstone Road. It is close to Harrow-on-the-Hill rail and tube station, and local bus stops but parking in the local area is limited. The clinic is wheelchair accessible. A toilet facility is available on the clinic premises.

The clinic is staffed by a receptionist and a doctor. . If for any reason, a shift is not filled by the doctor, a locum doctor from a bank of doctors is brought in. In addition, staff work closely with other staff based at the head office in Ilford. The clinic is open on Thursday 10am to 5pm and Sunday 10am to 12pm. Slimming and obesity management services are provided for adults over the age of 18 on a walk in basis.

How we inspected this service

Prior to the inspection we reviewed information about the service, including the previous inspection report and information given to us by the provider. We spoke to the registered manager, the doctor, three patients using the service and reviewed a range 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 7 November 2019

This service is rated as Requires improvement overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Requires improvement

Are services effective? – Requires improvement

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Inadequate

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Kings Private Clinic Harrow to rate the service for the provision of safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led services as part of our current inspection programme.

Kings Private Clinic Harrow provides weight loss services, including prescribed medicines and dietary advice to support weight reduction.

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:

• Patients using this clinic were very happy with the service being provided and gave us positive feedback about the service.
• The governance arrangements did not ensure that the clinic was providing a high quality service. This was because there was poor management and oversight of prescribing

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

• Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.
• Establish and maintain an appropriate system for the disposal of medicines in accordance with current legislation.

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

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Improve the prescribing of medicines and only supply unlicensed medicines against valid special clinical needs of an individual patient where there is no suitable licensed medicine available

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