Archived: National Slimming Centres (Sheffield)

Updated 2 September 2021

National Slimming Centres (Sheffield) is based on the first floor of a shared building and is located near Sheffield city centre.

The service comprises of a reception, office area and one clinic room. A toilet facility is available on the clinic premises. There is a doctor and two receptionists and another member of staff that looks after compliance work at the service.

The service is open Tuesday 1.30pm to 3pm and Saturday 9.00am to 12.00 noon.

Slimming and obesity management services are provided for adults over 18 years of age by appointment.

This service is planning to close in September 2021 and there was information displayed informing patients of this intention.

How we inspected this service

Prior to the inspection we reviewed information about the service, including the previous inspection report and action plan and information from the provider. We spoke to the manager and two members of staff. We also reviewed a range of documents.

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 2 September 2021

This service is rated as Choose a rating overall.– Requires improvement

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Requires improvement

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Requires improvement

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 29 June 2021 at National Slimming Centres (Sheffield) as part of our inspection programme to follow up on breaches of regulations. CQC previously inspected the service on 3 March 2020 and rated it as Requires Improvement overall.

We asked the provider to make improvements regarding safe care and treatment, fit and proper persons employed and good governance. We found that there were improvements since our last inspection, but some further improvements in relating to safe care and treatment and good governance were still needed.

National Slimming Centres (Sheffield) is a private clinic which provides weight loss services for adults, including prescribing medicines and dietary advice to support weight reduction. This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

The clinic doctor is also 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.

Our key findings were:

• The clinic was in a good state of repair, clean and tidy.
• Policies and protocols had not been updated or reviewed.
• Some patient records were not completed in line with policy.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review and improve policies and protocols to reflect the current practice.
• Improve the audit system to identify issues and ensure records are accurate and complete.
• Only supply unlicensed medicines against valid special clinical needs of an individual patient where there is no suitable licensed medicine available.
• Where medicines are prescribed outside of prescribing protocols the reason should be clearly documented in consultation notes.
• Consent to share information with the patients doctor should be discussed when patients returned after a break in treatment.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care.