Blackberry Clinic - Walsall

Updated 27 January 2023

Blackberry Clinic Limited head office is located at the following address in Milton Keynes.

Blackberry Clinic Group,
3 Blackberry Court, Walnut Tree,
Milton Keynes, MK7 7PB

The provider Blackberry Clinic Limited is registered with the Care Quality Commission and provides regulated activities at 12 registered locations. This includes Blackberry Clinic – Walsall.

The nominated individual and Medical Director, Dr Simon Petrides, has over 30 years’ experience in treating back, muscle and joint pain. Based on this experience Blackberry Clinic Limited was founded to provide treatment for sports injuries and back, muscle and joint pain. The clinics are supported by a team of specialist doctors, physiotherapists, osteopaths and chiropractors who use a combined multidisciplinary approach to treat painful musculoskeletal conditions.

Blackberry Clinic – Walsall, team of specialist practitioners provide interventional pain management. Interventional pain management uses minimally invasive procedures to, intervene and disrupt the signals of pain. The practitioner specialists carry out consultations and treatment which require minimally invasive procedures instead of surgery. Consultations, procedures and treatments include physical examinations, diagnostic imaging/scanning, steroid injections, joint injections, musculoskeletal medicine and other therapies. Blackberry Clinic Limited is also partnered with Bupa Health Clinics to offer Bupa Health Assessments nationwide.

The staff team at Blackberry Clinic - Walsall consists of:

• A clinic centre manager who is also the registered manager
• Consultants in Sports, Pain and Musculoskeletal Medicine
• A quality and compliance officer who covers all the Blackberry clinics
• A receptionist

Blackberry Clinic – Walsall was previously known as Sport Medicine Partners from Blackberry Clinic Lichfield and was located in Lichfield. The clinic moved to new premises in Walsall and was renamed to reflect the area it is now situated. The clinic opening hours are Monday to Thursday 8am to 4pm and Friday, 9am to 1pm. The service operates from the basement floor of a shared leased building. Access to the clinic is via steps or a ramp for people with mobility problems. There is an onsite car park for patients. The service had a waiting room, three consulting rooms, one treatment room and patient accessible toilet facilities.

Full details of the services provided are available on the Blackberry Clinic website at www.blackberryclinic.co.uk

How we inspected this service

During the inspection we spoke with staff, reviewed information made available to us by the provider, reviewed a sample of clinical records, made observations and reviewed 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 27 January 2023

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 Blackberry Clinic – Walsall as part of our inspection programme.

Blackberry Clinic – Walsall provides a pain clinic service. Treatments are provided by pain specialists who specialise in the management of back, joint and neck pain.

Our key findings were:

• There were systems to assess, monitor and manage risks to patient safety.
• Services provided were organised and delivered to meet patients identified and assessed needs.
• The provider had systems and processes in place to minimise the risk of infection.
• Appropriate medicines and equipment were available to manage medical emergencies.
• Staff had received training and guidance to deal with medical and other health and safety emergencies.
• The provider maintained a central register of any complaints and incidents that had occurred across all its locations. This supported sharing learning and improvements across the organisation. There had not been any complaints or any incidents specific to this location however, staff were aware of the systems in place for identifying, reporting and acting on complaints and incidents.
• We saw examples where information was shared with a patients NHS GP to support the continuity of safe care and treatment.
• Patients were supported to live healthier lives, through education, support and had access to care and treatment in a timely manner.
• Staff treated patients with respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• Governance arrangements in place ensured the provider had effective management oversight of systems to support ongoing learning, monitoring and improvement.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services