A provider who failed to register her slimming clinic with the Care Quality Commission as required by law has received a 6-month community and will undertake 80 hours of community work by Worthing Magistrates court.
CQC brought the case against Slimming Clinics (Mrs Irwin-Wulff T/A BMG) for carrying on a regulated activity at BMG Clinic Bognor Regis without being registered.
It is an offence under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to carry out a regulated activity – in this case, running a slimming clinic - without being registered with CQC.
At Worthing Magistrates Court on Friday (24 April) Mrs Irwin-Wulff pleaded guilty to a charge of operating a slimming clinic without being registered, in breach of the Health and Social Care Act. She received a 6-month community order and will undertake 80 hours of unpaid work. She has also been ordered to pay £500 costs as well as a £60 victim surcharge.
The court was told that inspectors who visited the clinic in January 2014 were concerned about the manner in which the service was managed. The health and welfare of people were being put at unacceptable risk. The service had a visiting doctor holding clinics at of the location provided by Mrs Wulff. This consultation resulted in him prescribing controlled medicines which are dispensed and supplied to clients. The record keeping was poor with records being lost or destroyed, resulting at times in additional quantities of medication being prescribed. Medication was found to be dispensed into either unlabelled medicine bottles, or home-made labels. The location visited had no authorised person in control of the medication. In response to this the medication was seized and handed over to Police.
Adrian Hughes, Deputy Chief Inspector of Registration said:
"Registration with the Care Quality Commission is required by law to protect people who receive treatment in slimming clinics where they are prescribing medication to help people control their weight.
"The law says that only certain people can authorise the supply of such medication and that slimming clinics must be registered with the CQC. The provider was placing people at significant risk of receiving inappropriate or unsafe care and medication and we will not hesitate to take legal action where slimming clinics are found to be operating without registration.”
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