Highcroft Aesthetics

Updated 1 February 2023

Highcroft Aesthetics is located at Highcroft, 33 Grange Road, Ryton, NE40 3LU. The service is located in a single treatment room on the ground floor. Patients have access to toilet facilities.

The provider, Laura Garner Ltd, is registered with the CQC to carry out the regulated activities of surgical procedures and the treatment of disease, disorder or injury from this location. The provider operates a clinician-led service which specialises in aesthetic treatments and weight loss services. The service does not offer NHS treatment. The service and the treatments within scope of registration are led and carried out by the provider who is a registered dentist who is qualified to prescribe medicines and is registered with the General Dental Council (GDC) in the UK. No other staff were employed at the clinic at the time of the inspection. The service is open Tuesday 2pm to 8pm and Saturday from 9am to 5pm.

How we inspected this service

Before visiting we reviewed a range of information we hold about the service and information provided pre-inspection by the service.

During our inspection we:

• Spoke with the registered provider.
• Looked at information the clinic used to deliver care and treatment plans.
• Reviewed documents and policies used by the service.
• Reviewed patient feedback received by the provider and by CQC.
• Observed the premises where services were delivered from.

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 1 February 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 Highcroft Aesthetics as part of our inspection programme, to inspect all newly registered locations. This was a first rated inspection for the service since they registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in January 2022.

Highcroft Aesthetics provides a private aesthetics service for fee paying clients. This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of some, but not all, of the services they 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 Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

Highcroft Aesthetics provides a range of non-surgical cosmetic interventions, for example dermal filler injections, anti-wrinkle treatments and non-prescription topical treatment for skin conditions which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services. At the time of the inspection, they offered thread face lifts and medical treatment for hyperhidrosis and weight management, which were within scope of the regulations.

Dr Laura Garner 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 people. 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.

Our key findings were:

• There were systems to assess, monitor and manage risks to patient safety.
• The provider assessed needs and delivered care in line with evidence-based guidelines. The provider had some quality improvement activity in place, but as the service was small, this was focussed on individual patient outcomes.
• The provider had the skills, knowledge and experience to carry out their roles.
• Patients were treated with kindness, respect and compassion and helped to make decisions about care and treatment.
• The provider understood the needs of their patients and wherever possible made reasonable adjustments to make sure the service was accessible and responsive to the needs of patients.
• There were clear structures, systems and processes to support effective leadership and governance. The provider had a drive to deliver safe, personalised, high quality care that met the needs of the people who used the service. However, there were some gaps in the approach to continual quality improvement.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review and improve the arrangements for responding to a medical emergency by providing access to a defibrillator and oxygen within the premises.
• Develop the governance and quality improvement strategy in place within the service to ensure it supports appropriate assurance, identification and implementation of quality improvements. For example, within clinical quality; infection prevention and control; and the process for recording learning and quality improvement from events, incidents and near misses that do not meet the threshold for serious events.
• Make appropriate arrangements for the regular calibration of equipment, such as the scales used to weigh clients undergoing weight loss treatment.
• Make sure the complaint process is accessible and publicised online so people who use the service can access it easily in the event they are unhappy with the care, treatment or service received.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

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