Global Health Medical Services

Updated 5 March 2020

Global Health Medical Services is a medical clinic located at 68 Kenway Road, Earls Court, London, SW5 0RD. It is situated in a mainly residential area to the west of central London. The service is easily accessible by public transport and limited parking is available on surrounding streets.

The clinic utilises two floors of a converted residential building, occupying the basement and ground floors. The service consists of a waiting/reception area, consulting room and patient toilet on the ground floor and a further consultation room, bathroom and recovery room on the basement floor. The space was shared with a separate service which offered aesthetic beauty treatments and which mainly used the consulting room in the basement. The activities carried out by that service do not fall within the scope of registration with the Care Quality Commission.

The clinic is open from 9am to 5pm Monday to Saturday and closed on Sundays. The service offers pre-bookable face-to-face appointments for acute illness and minor injuries. It also operates a call out service which was available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Clinical services are provided by two lead doctors and another doctor, when required. There is also a receptionist carrying who carries out the general management and administrative duties. The call out service is provided by the lead doctors themselves and was not contracted out. Patients could be seen either at the clinic or at home, hotels and business addresses. The service’s patients are mainly visitors from Arabic speaking countries. Staff are able to communicate in a variety of European languages and Chinese.

The provider is registered with the CQC to carry out the regulated activities diagnostic and screening procedures, surgical procedures, family planning and treatment of disease, disorder or injury. The service provides medical services for adults and children. The service did not have a functioning website at the time of this inspection.

How we inspected this 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 5 March 2020

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Global Health Medical Services on 3 February 2020 as part of our inspection programme and to follow up on breaches of regulations from the previous inspection. At that inspection we found the provider was not meeting the regulations in respect of governance; specifically, those relating to medicines and equipment safety, business continuity and policies governing the operation of the service. We checked these areas as part of this comprehensive inspection and found they had been resolved.

The service is an independent health service providing general medical services from the clinic and on a call-out basis.

The lead doctor 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.

Feedback obtained through comment cards was wholly complimentary. We received fifteen completed comment cards. We were not able to speak with any patients as none attended or had appointments on the day of the inspection.

Our key findings were:

• There was a system in place for acting on significant events.
• Risks associated with the premises and the delivery of care and treatment were well managed.
• There were arrangements in place to protect children and vulnerable adults from abuse.
• Care and treatment was provided in accordance with current guidelines.
• Patient feedback indicated that staff were compassionate, the care provided of a high standard and that it was easy to access appointments.
• The service had a system to receive and respond to complaints.
• There was a clear vision and strategy and staff spoke of an open and supportive culture.
• There was effective governance to ensure risks were addressed and patients were kept safe.

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