The Care Quality Commission
  • Clinic
  • Slimming clinic

Archived: National Slimming & Cosmetic Clinics

3 Ridley Place, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne And Wear, NE1 8JQ

Provided and run by:
Codegrange Limited

Important: The provider of this service changed. See old profile
Important: The provider of this service changed. See new profile

All Inspections

15 January 2019

During an inspection looking at part of the service

We carried out an unannounced focussed inspection on 15 January 2019 to ask the service the following key questions; Are services safe, effective and well-led?

Our findings were:

Are services safe?

We found that this service was providing safe care in accordance with the relevant regulations

Are services effective?

We found that this service was providing effective care in accordance with the relevant regulations

Are services well-led?

We found that this service was providing well-led care in accordance with the relevant regulations

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

CQC inspected the service on 28 November and 15 December 2017, and again on 19 June 2018 and asked the provider to make improvements regarding medicines that were not prescribed in line with the provider’s policy with no information in the records to explain the decision to prescribe. Also clinical audits were not completed at the frequency detailed in the policy and had not picked up all of the issues. We checked these areas as part of this focussed inspection and found this had been resolved.

Our key findings were:

  • We saw that improvements had been made in medical record keeping and prescribing practices
  • A system was in place to ensure the effective monitoring and quality improvement of service being provided at the clinic.

There were areas where the provider could make improvements and should:

  • Only supply unlicensed medicines against valid special clinical needs of an individual patient where there is no suitable licensed medicine available

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGPChief Inspector of General Practice

19 June 2018

During an inspection looking at part of the service

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at National Slimming and Cosmetic Clinics – Newcastle on 28 November and 15 December 2017 where breaches of legal requirement were found. The full comprehensive report on the November 2017 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for National Slimming and Cosmetic Clinics – Newcastle on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was an unannounced focused inspection carried out on 19 June 2018 to confirm that the clinic had met the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection.

This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and any additional improvements made since our last inspection.

Our key findings were as follows:

  • All staff had completed safeguarding training.
  • Staff were aware of online translation services and had not used family members or friends as a translator.

We identified regulations that continued to be not met and the provider must:

  • Ensure that systems and processes are in place to effectively monitor and improve the quality of services being provided
  • Ensure that care and treatment is provided in a safe way for the service users.

You can see full details of the regulations not being met at the end of this report.

There were areas where the provider could make improvements and should:

  • Only supply unlicensed medicines against valid special clinical needs of an individual patient where there is no suitable licensed medicine available.

28 November 2017, 15 December 2017

During a routine inspection

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 28 November 2017 and an unannounced second inspection on 15 December 2017 to ask the service the following key questions; Are services safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led?

Our findings were:

Are services safe?

We found that this service was providing safe care in accordance with the relevant regulations

Are services effective?

We found that this service was not providing effective care in accordance with the relevant regulations

Are services caring?

We found that this service was providing caring services in accordance with the relevant regulations

Are services responsive?

We found that this service was providing responsive care in accordance with the relevant regulations

Are services well-led?

We found that this service was not providing well-led care in accordance with the relevant regulations

Background

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

National Slimming & Cosmetic Clinics (Newcastle) provides advice on weight loss and prescribed medicines to support weight reduction. The clinic consists of a reception, one consulting room, staff /office area and toilet; and is located on the first floor of a commercial building near to the city centre. Staff include a clinic manager, three part-time doctors and one receptionist. The clinic is open four days a week, including Saturday.

This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of the provision of advice or treatment by, or under the supervision of, a medical practitioner, including the prescribing of medicines for the purposes of 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.

Patients completed 25 CQC comment cards to tell us what they thought about the service. The observations made were positive and reflected that patients found staff to be friendly, helpful and welcoming. They also said that the environment was safe, clean and tidy. We spoke to two patients on the day of the inspection who were also satisfied with the service.

Our key findings were:

  • Staff told us that they felt supported to carry out their roles and responsibilities.
  • We found feedback from patients was always positive about the care they received, the helpfulness of staff and the cleanliness of the premises.
  • The provider had processes for reporting, learning, sharing and improving from incidents.

We identified regulations that were not being met and the provider must:

  • Ensure that care and treatment is provided in a safe way for the service users.
  • Ensure that systems and processes are in place to effectively monitor and improve the quality of services being provided.

You can see full details of the regulations not being met at the end of this report.

There were areas where the provider could make improvements and should:

  • Only supply unlicensed medicines against valid special clinical needs of an individual patient where there is no suitable licensed medicine available.
  • Review the need for appraisals of clinical staff.
  • Review and risk assess the appropriateness of having a family member/ friend as a translator.