Doctorcall London provides an independent 24 hour visiting doctor service in London. The doctors carry out home or hotel visits inside the M25 on request.

The provider also runs a clinic in central London (Doctorcall, 121 Harley Street, London W1G 6AX), one in the City of London (Dr Kelly & Associates, 65 London Wall, London, EC2M 5TU) and another in Manchester (Doctorcall, 2-4 Exchange Street, St Anne’s Square, Manchester, M2 7HA) all of which offer primary care consultations with a doctor.

This inspection covers the visiting doctor service and the provider’s clinic in Harley Street in central London. Both of these services are available to children and adults. The clinic is open from Monday to Saturday with consultations normally available as follows:

• Monday, Tuesday, Thursday: 12pm to 5pm
• Wednesday: 11am to 5pm
• Friday: 8.30am to 1pm
• Saturday: 10am to 1pm

The provider currently contracts with 15 self-employed doctors (male and female) to provide the visiting doctor and clinic services.

The clinic has a registered patient list but the focus of the service is on providing screening services and treatment for acute issues. For example the provider told us they did not provide ongoing care for long-term conditions such as diabetes. The provider offered consultations, travel vaccinations, sexual health services including cryotherapy and health screening services.

The service is located in a converted property. The service consultation rooms and office areas occupy the second floor which is accessible by stairs and a lift. The premises are owned by the medical director.

We carried out this inspection of Doctorcall London on 13 March 2018. The inspection team comprised one CQC inspector and a GP specialist advisor. Before visiting, we reviewed a range of information we hold about the service and asked the provider to send us some information about the service which we also reviewed.

During our visit we:

• Spoke with the staff who were present, including the managers and one of the visiting GPs. We also spoke with the medical director by telephone.
• Reviewed documentary evidence relating to the service and inspected the facilities, equipment and security arrangements.
• We reviewed a number of patient records alongside the visiting GP. We needed to do this to understand how the service assessed and documented patients’ needs, consent and any treatment required.
• Reviewed 32 comment cards completed by patients attending the clinic in advance of the inspection.

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 formed the framework for the areas we looked at during the inspection.