Cleveland Clinic London Hospital

On this page

• Overview
• Person-centred Care
• Care provision, Integration and continuity
• Providing Information
• Listening to and involving people
• Equity in access
• Equity in experiences and outcomes
• Planning for the future

The service planned care to meet the needs of people using a clinically focused, research-based approach to developing innovative care. Staff took account of patients’ individual needs, made it easy for them to give feedback, and acted on this. People could access the service when they needed it and did not have to wait long for treatment. The complementary range of clinical specialties available made many care pathways available on a seamless basis.

This service scored 79 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Waiting areas were equipped with comfortable seating, drinking water, tea and coffee, including herbal and decaffeinated options. Staff provided access to quiet or private waiting areas on request.

The hospital was equipped with a range of facilities to support patients to have a positive experience and meet their individual needs. This included multi-faith prayer rooms, private spaces to wait for patients with sensitivities to noise or who were anxious, and gender-neutral, accessible toilets with no-touch technology for security and infection prevention and control.

Staff used an intentional rounding system to continuously monitor patient flow and identify any unmet needs in the department. Rounding included identifying any patients who needed additional support, time, or equipment, and ensuring communication was maintained with patients if clinics were delayed. Intentional rounding is commonly used in departments where patients experience long waits. This was not the case in this clinic and the team had adapted the concept to focus on quality and patient experience.

The service monitored levels of patient centredness by using a combination of results from patient feedback and quality of care audits. These included patient satisfaction with staff communication and clinical outcomes. The service consistently scored 100% in this measure. This was measured overall for outpatients.

The provider developed and expanded services to meet patient demand and the needs of the local community. For example, the outpatient team offered joint injections, minor operations using local anaesthetic, plaster removal, and Botox injections for headaches.

Subject matter experts facilitated learning and worked with the continuous improvement lead (CIL) to ensure learning was translational across departments. For example, learning in theatres might not be immediately translated into learning for outpatients. Subject matter experts and the CIL worked to find ways to translate learning into something meaningful for each department. When the surgery team experienced a ‘retained swab’ event, the CIL identified aspects of team communication that could be applied in outpatients, such as attention to detail in communication between consultants and nurses during minor surgery.

Nurses adopted ‘champion’ roles in which they developed specialist skills in a named are in addition to their usual responsibilities. Champions included deteriorating patients and resuscitation, falls prevention, and blood transfusion. A diabetes champion group had been established in 2024 as a result of learning by the diabetic clinical nurse specialist. Champions presented learning from their training and engagement to colleagues in team meetings. Champions and champion groups worked across outpatient locations and were not specific to any one site. This ensured staff and patients benefited from their expertise across the provider’s outpatient service.

Clinical educators worked across medical specialties, which provided outpatient staff with a wide range of development opportunities as part of the provider’s approach to integrating services and providing patients with continuity and consistency of care.

Pathology services monitored the turnaround time for blood and sample testing in outpatients against provider guidance. In the previous 12 months, 100% of reports met the target. The team monitored the quality of results taken by staff using point of care testing equipment in outpatient departments. Results showed consistent practice, with the majority of samples of sufficient quality for testing. The results were the same at all 3 outpatient sites.

Reception staff kept patients up to date with waiting and treatment times when patients were in the waiting area. The team actively monitored who was waiting to be seen and let them know in advance if their clinic was running late.

The electronic patient records system was in use across all teams and departments and accessible by all staff involved in care. This enabled the multidisciplinary team to provide up to date, coordinated information to patients.

Staff used an electronic patient records system to document consultations, test results, prescriptions, and clinical advice. Patients could access this using a smart phone app or computer at any time. The platform had a messaging function that enabled clinical staff and patients to communicate with each other to discuss results and treatment plans. The app placed staff-patient communications at the centre of care and reflected a leading-edge approach to providing patients with instant access to information. At the time of our assessment, 70% of patients used this system as their main method of communication. This figure was an overall average across all 3 outpatients’ sites and reflected the choice patients had in which located they received care. Staff provided 1-to-1 sessions with new patients to show them how to use the system, which offered patients 24/7 on-demand IT support.

Staff were trained to resolve minor issues and complaints at the time they were raised. A formal complaints process provided escalation, and the service was registered with the Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service (ISCAS). The patient safety team engaged with ISCAS to understand complaint trends across the sector and used this learning to proactively adapt the service.

The provider worked with patients, known as ‘patient partners’, to assess how well the environment supported the provision of clinical care, assessing areas such as privacy and dignity, food, cleanliness, general building maintenance, and the extent to which the environment was able to support the care of those with dementia or with a disability. Forming part of the annual national patient-led assessment of the care environment (PLACE), the provider acted on findings to improve the service.

In the previous 12 months the service received no formal complaints.

QS Score: 3

The global patient services (GPS) team facilitated language interpretation services and liaised with embassies and care providers outside of the UK to ensure seamless care when patients moved between them.

A dedicated patient access team supported patients to make the most appropriate bookings for their needs using each individual’s preferred communication methods. The team staffed the reception desk in each clinic and coordinated patient transfers between the provider’s 3 locations if needed. This team ensured any disruption to clinics was coordinated with clinical colleagues at other sites to rebook patients and avoid any delay to care.

Some clinical specialties offered a self-refer option for patients. For example, dieticians accepted self-referral requests and carried out a medical history and blood tests to ensure their care was appropriate. They had good relationships with nutritional consultants as well as the gastroenterology, bariatric, and neurology specialist teams and could refer into them for multidisciplinary assessment.

The provider offered flexible booking arrangements and the patient booking team monitored cancellations and offered patients rebooking options. Cancellations due to consultant availability or booking errors were rare and reflected fewer than 0.1% of total cancellations. This result is an overall figure for all of the provider’s outpatients’ departments.

The provider worked with external agencies on unique projects to address health risks in local communities. For example, the team partnered with a media outlet to present evidence of increased rates of anal cancer amongst gay men, promoting health knowledge and early detection and screening. Staff worked to reduce stigma and encourage people to attend the hospital if they experienced symptoms.

Patients rated access highly. In the previous 12 months, 97% they had found it easy to access care.

The GPS team worked with the case management team to ensure patients had continuous care when they left the clinic and where other organisations, and health systems were involved. Patients receiving care under this agreement had access to the same standards of evidence-based care and support as patients treated solely by the provider. The GPS team managed data sharing protocols and other aspects of confidentiality directly with embassies and other providers, ensuring patients maintained equitable outcomes.

Staff used an equality impact assessment tool for each policy or standard operating procedure. The tool helped to identify if any group of people, based on protected characteristics, would be disproportionately and negatively impacted by the policy or its update.

All staff undertook training in learning disability and autism awareness and demonstrated high levels of awareness and knowledge. They recognised the barriers to care people could face in relation to communication and understanding procedures and worked collaboratively to overcome these.

Staff were trained to recognise and escalate patient needs relating to self-harm and suicidal intent.

The provider facilitated an innovative research culture and proactively sought opportunities and partnerships with other organisations. Research was always focused on improving clinical practice and patient outcomes and staff at all levels were able to access research opportunities. The provider was exploring the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in a joint programme with the UK Government and an IT organisation to identify how AI could be safely and effectively used.

The research team had been nominated by the National Institutes of Health Research in 2024 for outstanding achievement by a team and for community engagement. This was the first recognition of its kind for an independent hospital in the UK and reflected the drive to plan for future healthcare developments and innovation.