The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated the Queen’s Clinic in Wimpole Street, Marylebone, London, Inadequate overall and placed it in special measures.
The Queen’s Clinic provides gynaecological services and advice to fee paying patients. CQC inspected on 9 and 10 February after receiving information of concern about the service, and also to follow up on breaches of regulation that were identified during the previous inspection in February 2020, when it was rated Requires Improvement.
Following the recent latest inspection, the Queen’s Clinic was also rated Inadequate in relation to whether it was safe, effective and well-led, and Requires Improvement in relation to its responsiveness. It was rated Good in the ‘caring’ domain.
CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector for Primary Medical Services, Vicki Wells, said:
“When we inspected the Queen’s Clinic in February last year, we had a number of concerns about the way in which the service was run. We re-inspected this February to look at whether improvements had been made, but unfortunately many of the issues we found had not been fully addressed, and we found further areas of concern.
“We have now told the provider that it must ensure that care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients and it must establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance of the service. It must also ensure that staff receive the appropriate support, training, professional development, supervision and appraisal, to enable them to carry out their duties effectively.
“The service has now been placed in special measures, which means that we will re-inspect within six months. If sufficient improvements have not been made at that point, we will take action which could mean that the provider is prevented from operating the service.”
Inspectors found the following areas of concern:
- The service did not have full infection control procedures in place
- Not all staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to carry out their roles
- Some staff had not received specific training for their role
- The appropriate level of Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks had not been carried out for all staff
- Care records were not clear, so it was difficult to follow the reason for diagnosis or treatment rational
- The provider did not have systems to keep clinicians up to date with current evidence-based practice
- There were no systems to support improvement and innovation work
- Staff did not understand what constituted a significant event
- Staff did not recognise the importance of people’s dignity and respect or understand the requirements of legislation and guidance when considering consent and decision making
- The service did not have a strategy or business plan in place
Full details of the inspection are given in the report published online here.
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