• Clinic
  • Slimming clinic

Archived: London Slimming and Cosmetic Centre

Overall: Inadequate read more about inspection ratings

406 Edgware Road, London, W2 1ED (020) 7402 0068

Provided and run by:
Avenfield Limited

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

All Inspections

21 Jan 2020

During a routine inspection

This service is rated as Inadequate overall. (Previous inspection 25 April 2018 - not rated)

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Inadequate

Are services effective? – Requires improvement

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at the London Slimming and Cosmetic centre to rate the service for the provision of safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led services as part of our current inspection programme.

The London Slimming and Cosmetic Centre provides weight loss services under the supervision of a medical doctor, including prescribed medicines, dietary and lifestyle advice to support weight reduction.

This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of some, but not all, of the services it provides. There are some exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of regulated activities and services and these are set out in

and of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. London Slimming and Cosmetic Centre provides a range of non-surgical cosmetic interventions, for example cosmetic injections and chemical peels which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.

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.

23 people provided feedback through comment cards about the service. The comments were all positive. Comments about the staff included being very professional, treating patients with respect, being friendly and encouraging about their treatment. Comments about the clinic included providing a clean, tidy and organised environment and flexibility of appointment times.

Our key findings were:

• Patients were positive about their experience at the clinic

• There was a lack of monitoring of the quality of care

• There was a lack of systems to monitor the suitability of staff for employment

• There was a lack of established governance procedures to deliver safe care.

The areas where the provider must make improvements as they are in breach of regulations are:

• Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care

• Ensure recruitment procedures are established and operated effectively to ensure only fit and proper persons are employed

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.

(Please see the specific details on action required at the end of this report).

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

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

• Document discussions with staff about developments and changes to the service to ensure a consistency of messages.

I am placing this service in special measures. Services placed in special measures will be inspected again within six months. If insufficient improvements have been made such that there remains a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating the service. This will lead to cancelling their registration or to varying the terms of their registration within six months if they do not improve.

The service will be kept under review and if needed could be escalated to urgent enforcement action. Where necessary, another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough improvement we will move to close the service by adopting our proposal to remove this location or cancel the provider’s registration.

Special measures will give people who use the service the reassurance that the care they get should improve.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care

25 April 2018

During an inspection looking at part of the service

We carried out a focused inspection on the 25 April 2018 to ask the service the following key question: Is the service safe?

Our findings were:

Is the service safe?

We found that this service was providing safe 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.

CQC previously inspected this service on the 25 April 2017 and asked the provider to make improvements regarding the safety of the service. We checked this as part of this focussed inspection and found that this had been resolved.

The London Slimming Centre is a slimming clinic located on Edgware Road in North West London. The clinic consists of a reception room and a consulting room on the first floor of 406 Edgware Road. It is very close to Edgware Road tube station, and local bus stops. Parking in the local area is limited and the building is not wheelchair accessible.

The clinic provided slimming advice and prescribed medicines to support weight reduction. It is a private service. It is open for walk in or booked appointments all day on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays (until 3pm), Thursdays, and Saturday mornings.

Our key findings were:

  • The provider had taken steps to ensure that all medicines dispensed to patients were labelled appropriately and relevant patient information was provided.
  • The provider should continue to review arrangements regarding the use of chaperones and any associated training that may be required.
  • The registered manager had received training in the safeguarding of both adults and children.
  • The provider now had an emergency risk assessment document. However, this had not been translated into a procedure for staff to follow in the event of an emergency.

25 April 2017

During a routine inspection

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 25 April 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 not providing safe care in accordance with the relevant regulations because safety systems and processes were not reliable, the management of medical emergencies required review, staff were not suitably trained, risks to health and safety required review, the maintenance of equipment required review, and medicines were not managed safely.

Are services effective?

We found that this service was providing effective care in accordance with the relevant regulations. We found areas where improvements should be made relating to the information provided to patients on the use of off label and unlicensed medicines.

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. We found areas where improvements should be made relating to the lack of policies regarding patients with protected characteristics.

Are services well-led?

We found that this service was 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.

The London Slimming Centre is a slimming clinic located on Edgware Road, in North West London. The clinic consists of a reception room and a consulting room on the first floor of 406 Edgware Road. It is very close to a tube station and local bus stops. Parking in the local area is limited and the building is not wheelchair accessible.

The clinic is staffed by a receptionist and four regular female GPs; however there is only ever one GP on shift at any one time. If for any reason, a shift is not filled by one of the regular GPs, a locum GP is brought in. In addition, there is a governance manager based at the Bournemouth head office who attends the clinic on an ad hoc basis (roughly once a month). This clinic is one of 26 clinics that is run by the same provider organisation.

The receptionist 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 Regulations about how the clinic is run.

The clinic provided slimming advice and prescribed medicines to support weight reduction. It was a private service. It was open for walk ins or booked appointments on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturday mornings. Patients were welcome to walk in and be weighed any time the clinic was open, and did not necessarily need to see the GP to do so.

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. At London Slimming Centre, the cosmetic injections that are also provided are exempt by law from CQC regulation. Therefore we were only able to inspect the treatment for weight reduction but not the cosmetic services.

Patients completed CQC comment cards to tell us what they thought about the service. We received 42 completed cards and all were positive. We were told that the service was very good, and that staff were helpful, informative, pleasant, respectful, welcoming and maintained people’s dignity at all times.

Our key findings were:

  • Individual patient records were written and managed in a way to keep patients safe.
  • The clinic appropriately refused to provide medicines to patients who did not fit the inclusion criteria for treatment.
  • The feedback from patients was always positive about the care they received, the helpfulness of staff and the cleanliness of the premises.

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

  • Ensure that all medicines dispensed to patients are labelled appropriately and that any relevant patient information is provided.
  • Ensure that the registered manager is trained in the safeguarding of adults and children.
  • Ensure the provision of chaperone training to staff.

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

  • Review risk assessments with regard to medical emergencies.
  • Only supply unlicensed medicines against valid special clinical needs of an individual patient where there is no suitable licensed medicine available.
  • Review fire safety procedures to provide assurance that patients would be kept safe in an emergency.
  • Review how the calibration of weighing scales is documented.
  • Review the information provided in relation to the use of off label and unlicensed medicines to ensure it is easily understandable to patients using the service.
  • Review policies and training regarding patients with protected characteristics.

30 January 2014

During a routine inspection

People who use the service were given appropriate information regarding their care or treatment. They were provided with information on dietary advice, a product information sheet on the medication prescribed and the possible side effects.

People's care and treatment reflected relevant research and guidance. For example staff followed the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance on obesity.

There were systems in place to reduce the risk and spread of infection. The clinic appeared clean and well maintained on the day of the inspection.

Staff received professional development. They received formal appraisals. The manager discussed their last appraisal with us.

There was a complaints lead in the clinic. The complaints policy was displayed in the reception area and visible to people using the service.