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 the clinic and visiting doctor services are available to children and adults.

On average, the provider sees between 100 and 200 patients a month. There is a focus on providing screening services, travel vaccination and treatment for acute issues, rather than long-term conditions, although some patients use the service as their main source of ongoing primary care. The provider also provides medical checks and consultations under contract to corporate employers and agencies and in line with certain industry (eg ‘oil and gas’) requirements. One of the clinic-based GPs has a special interest in sexual health and HIV. There are arrangements in place for patients to be referred by the provider to other services for diagnostic imaging and specialist care.

The Harley Street clinic is open from Monday to Friday from 8am to 5pm and on Saturday from 10am to 1pm. The clinic is located in a converted property. The consultation rooms and office areas occupy the second floor which is accessible by stairs and a lift. There are good transports links nearby.

The service currently contracts with 18 self-employed doctors (male and female) to provide the visiting doctor and clinic services. The service employs an administrative team and a practice manager who works across both the London clinics. The visiting service is additionally supported by a separate call-centre and staff. The medical director has overall responsibility for the service.

Doctorcall London is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide the regulated activities: diagnostic and screening procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

How we inspected this service

Our inspection team was led by a CQC inspector. The team included a GP specialist adviser.

During our visit we, spoke with staff including the supervisor, the service manager, the medical director, two of the doctors on duty and administrative staff. We reviewed documentary evidence relating to the service and inspected the facilities, equipment and security arrangements. We reviewed a sample of patient records with one of the doctors. We needed to do this to understand how the service assessed and documented patients’ needs, consent and any treatment required. We also reviewed ten comment cards completed by patients in the days leading up to 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 therefore formed the framework for the areas we looked at during the inspection.