Archived: Emerge Aesthetics

Updated 23 August 2023

Background

The provider was registered by CQC on 24 February 2022 in respect of the regulated activity of Treatment of disease, disorder or injury (TDDI). The provider operates from their registered address; however, most staff are working remotely.

The Emerge Aesthetics is an independent provider of online and telephone services to support people to lose weight across the England. This can include prescribed medicines, counselling, dietary and movement advice.

Adults can schedule online or telephone appointments by phone or via the website with a non-medical prescribing (NMP) nurse. The service offers patients a range of treatment programmes to aid or maintain weight loss.

The service schedules online or telephone appointments with people at mutually convenient times.

Information regarding the service can be found on the provider’s website – www.emergeaesthetics.co.uk

How we inspected this service

Before the inspection, we gathered and reviewed information from the provider. As this was registered as an online provider, we undertook the inspection and accessed their clinical records where the service also delivered a range of non-surgical cosmetic interventions. These non-surgical cosmetic interventions are not within CQC scope of registration. During the inspection we interviewed the service’s nominated individual and registered manager, who are also non-medical prescribing nurses. We reviewed a range of the provider’s policies and procedures, patient consultation records and patient feedback received by the service.

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 23 August 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 our first announced comprehensive inspection at Emerge Aesthetics as part of our inspection programme following the registration of a new service.

Emerge Aesthetics, provides an online and telephone service to support people manage their weight across England. This can include prescribed medicines and lifestyle advice including, counselling, dietary and movement advice.

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 Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Emerge Aesthetics provides a range of non-surgical cosmetic interventions, for example dermal fillers and Facial Contouring which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.

The service 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.

Our key findings were:

• Via a patient survey, patients were positive about the service.
• Staff displayed an understanding and non-judgmental attitude to all patients.
• Through clinical review staff monitored the frequency of side effects and weight loss reported by patients.
• There was a focus on continuous learning and improvement.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Support staff to be able to identify and contact the relevant authority when submitting a safeguarding referral.
• Appropriate training on interacting with people with a learning disability and autistic people should be undertaken by all staff.
• Continue to monitor clinical effectiveness and quality of clinical records to demonstrate safe and effective treatment.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Health Care