Face Perfect Clinic

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

This is the first assessment for this service since its registration with CQC. This key question has been rated as Inadequate.

This service scored 33 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Staff did not always make sure patients’ care and treatment was effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care, and wellbeing needs with them.

We reviewed patient records and saw that record keeping was not consistent. A ‘skin service’ medical history form was being used for some other conditions treated at the service, which meant that specific risks associated with other conditions, for example weight management, were not fully identified or explored prior to treatment.. We saw evidence that weight loss was not being recorded after the first visit, clinical records did not always have the prescriptions attached to clearly demonstrate what had been prescribed, and there was a lack of comprehensive clinical notes. After the assessment the provider told us that this would be audited and fed back to clinical staff, and that it had created medical history forms specific to each service.

Feedback from patients using the service was positive. They told us they felt involved in assessments of their needs and felt confident that their individual needs were understood.

There were policies and standard operating procedures in place. However, we saw that these lacked detail and adequate clinical guidance to support staff to safely prescribe and monitor patient’s health. After the assessment the provider reviewed and updated some of their policies and procedures.

Staff carried out audits of patient records, however these audits were not comprehensive and had not identified concerns we found during the assessment.

There was no evidence that clinicians were discussing individual risks, complications or side effects with patients in the clinical records we reviewed.

Staff did not work well with other teams and services which supported patients using the service. For example, staff told us that patients were given a letter to take to their GP to inform the GP of what had been prescribed at the service. This was not in line with guidance which states it is the prescriber’s responsibility to inform the patients’ other health care practitioner.

There was no evidence to show that a letter had been given to the patient to give to their GP in the records we reviewed. There was no area in the medical history forms or the consent forms to record if a patient was happy for the staff to contact or share information with their GP.

Policies did not reflect the expectations of the guidance and did not mention communication with GPs. In addition, policies did not state actions staff should take if a patient stated they did not want their GP to be contacted, including if prescribing could continue to take place.

After the assessment the provider amended their policies and notified us of communication with staff about the changes put in place to ensure better GP communication going forwards.

The provider could not evidence that staff supported patients to manage their health and wellbeing. The policies described how staff could support patients to live healthier lives, but this was not reflected in any records we looked at. For example, although the weight loss policy indicated a dietician could be contacted, there was no reference to this being offered in any of the records we looked at.

Staff did not routinely record how patients’ care and treatment was monitored. It was not clear from patient records how they were monitoring treatments that had been prescribed. For example, for patients prescribed acne treatment, follow-up appointments did not record patient experience and in most cases, it was not clear how successful the prescribed treatments had been. For weight loss treatments, monitoring of weight loss after the initial consultation was not routinely recorded to monitor the effects of the treatment. The schedule described by the provider for reviews of patients, for example 6 weeks for acne and monthly for weight loss, was not reflected in the records we looked at.

For menopause patients, clinical reviews were not appropriately recorded. Where patients had been contacted by email, the clinical records did not always provide details and outcomes of that contact, and it was not clear if it had been an effective way of communicating with the patient or if any changes were needed to support them.

Staff ensured that written consent was sought and documented prior to treatments being delivered. However, we found that the information within consent forms was not always accurate. For example, consent forms for the acne service detailed patients may be prescribed a specific antibiotic, however the provider told us it would never actually prescribe this.

Staff told us that consent forms could be translated to ensure patient comprehension, if required, but they did not have these readily available.