Archived: National Slimming Centres (Gillingham)

Updated 12 December 2018

National Slimming Centres (Gillingham) is an independent provider of weight management services, including prescribed medicines, dietary and lifestyle advice. The clinic is in Gillingham town centre on the first floor of a shared building. There is toilet access within the clinic. The clinic does not currently offer step free access for patients. The clinic is open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

We carried out this inspection on 23 October 2018. Our inspection team was comprised of two members of the CQC medicines optimisation team. We reviewed information relevant to this service before the inspection, including information obtained directly from the provider. We also interviewed clinical and non-clinical staff and reviewed 20 individual medical records.

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?

At this follow up inspection the safe and effective questions formed the framework for the areas we looked at during the inspection.

Updated 12 December 2018

We carried out an announced follow up inspection on 23 October 2018 to ask the service the following key questions; Are services safe? Are services effective?

Our findings were:

Are services safe?

We found that this service was providing safe care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services effective?

We found that this service was providing effective care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

CQC inspected the service on 16 March 2018 and asked the provider to make improvements regarding how they provided safe care and treatment. We checked these areas as part of this follow up inspection and found they had been resolved.

This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of the provision of advice or treatment by, or under the supervision of, a medical practitioner, including the prescribing of medicines for the purposes of weight reduction. At National Slimming Centres (Gillingham) the aesthetic cosmetic treatments that are also provided are exempt by law from CQC regulation. Therefore, we were only able to inspect the treatment for weight reduction but not the aesthetic cosmetic services.

The clinic 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:

• Information used for employment, including identification checks were in place.
• Medicines held to treat emergencies had been replaced and were seen to be suitable for use.
• Patients were prescribed medicines in accordance with the provider’s guidelines and received appropriate treatment breaks.

There were areas where the provider could make improvements and should:

• Only supply unlicensed medicines against valid special clinical needs of an individual patient where there is no suitable licensed medicine available.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGPChief Inspector of General Practice