Archived: The Private Clinic Limited - Manchester

Updated 20 January 2017

The Private Clinic - Manchester is operated by The Private Clinic Ltd. The clinic opened in 2009. It is a private healthcare service located in Manchester, Greater Manchester and primarily serves the communities of the Greater Manchester. It also accepts patient referrals from outside this area.

The clinic has had a registered manager in post since October 2016. The registered manager is based at another of the providers locations. The service appointed a clinic manager in February 2016. At the time of the inspection, the clinic manager was in the process of applying to become the registered manager for the clinic.

There were no special reviews or investigations of the service on-going by the CQC at any time during the 12 months before this inspection. The clinic was previously inspected in March 2014. We found that the service was meeting all standards of quality and safety it was inspected against during that inspection.

The clinic is registered to provide the following regulated activities:

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

Updated 20 January 2017

The Private Clinic - Manchester is operated by The Private Clinic Ltd. The clinic provides cosmetic surgery services for private fee-paying adult patients over the age of 18 years. Patients are admitted for planned day case surgery procedures. The services do not provide overnight accommodation for patients. Facilities include two treatment rooms and two theatres.

The main service provided by the clinic is surgery. We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the announced part of the inspection on 27 October 2016.

To get to the heart of patients experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so we rate services performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

We do not currently have a legal duty to rate cosmetic surgery services or the regulated activities they provide but we highlight good practice and issues that service providers need to improve and take regulatory action as necessary.

We found the following areas of good practice:

• Patient safety was monitored and incidents were investigated to assist learning and improve care. Patients received care in visibly clean and suitably maintained premises and were supported with the right equipment.
• Medicines were stored safely and given to patients in a timely manner. Patient records were completed appropriately. The staffing levels and skills mix was sufficient to meet patients needs and staff assessed and responded to patient risks.
• All staff had completed their mandatory training and annual appraisals. Care and treatment was provided by suitably trained, competent staff that worked well as part of a multidisciplinary team.
• Patients received care and treatment according to national guidelines such as National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the Royal Colleges. Performance data was submitted to the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) in September 2016.
• We spoke with six patients and they all spoke positively about their care and treatment. Staff treated patients with dignity and respect and patients were kept involved in their care. Patient satisfaction surveys showed patients were positive about the care and treatment they received.
• There was sufficient capacity and daily planning by staff so patients could be admitted and discharged in a timely manner. There was one case of a cancelled procedure for a non-clinical reason in the last 12 months and this patient was treated within 28 days of the cancellation.
• Patient consent was obtained prior to commencing treatment. Complaints about the services were resolved in a timely manner and shared with staff to aid learning.
• The providers purpose statement and objectives had been shared with staff. There was clearly visible leadership within the services. Staff were positive about the culture within the services and the level of support they received. There was routine public and staff engagement.

However, we also found the following issues that the service provider needs to improve:

• The services did not participate in national audit programmes as a way to compare and benchmark patient outcomes, such as performance reported outcomes measures (PROMs). The services planned to participate in the national varicose vein procedure PROMS by March 2017.
• Completed World Health Organization (WHO) surgical checklist records were reviewed as part of the routine patient record audits. However, there was no specific audit in place to observe staff practice and adherence to the WHO checklist.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it should make other improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve.

Ellen Armistead

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals

Updated 20 January 2017

The Private Clinic – Manchester carries out cosmetic surgery procedures.

We do not currently have a legal duty to rate this service but we highlight good practice and issues that service providers need to improve and take regulatory action as necessary.