Archived: Pandastar Ltd T/A National Slimming Centres (Hounslow) Also known as National Slimming and Cosmetic Clinic

Updated 6 September 2016

We inspected the service as part of our new comprehensive inspection programme 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 provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2015, to look at the overall quality of the service, under the Care Act 2014.

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Pandastar Ltd T/A National Slimming Centres (Hounslow) on 17 February 2016 as part of the independent doctor services inspection pilot. The inspection team was led by a CQC inspector who is also a pharmacist specialist and included another inspector from the CQC medicines team.

The methods that were used during the inspection, were talking to people using the service, interviewing of staff, observations and review of documents.

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 6 September 2016

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 17 February 2016 to ask the service the following key questions; Are services safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led?

Our findings were:

Are services safe?

We found that this service was not 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.

Are services caring?

We found that this service was providing caring services in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services responsive?

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

Are services well-led?

We found that this service was providing well-led care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Background

Pandastar Ltd T/A National Slimming Centres (Hounslow) provides weight loss treatment and services, including medicines and dietary advice to people accessing the service. The clinic is on the second floor of a shared building in a city centre location. The clinic is open for 3 to 4 hours six days a week on Mondays to Saturdays.

The clinic is run by doctors and a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) 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.

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 the National Slimming and Cosmetic Centre (Hounslow) 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.

We received feedback about the clinic from nineteen completed Care Quality Commission comment cards. The observations made on the comment cards were all positive and reflected that people found staff to be helpful, encouraging, supportive and caring. On the day of the inspection we spoke with three people that used the service.

Our key findings were:

• We found the service had good governance systems and quality assurance processes in place.
• The feedback we received from patients was consistently positive about the care they received.
• The provider did not always supply medicines in line with evidence based practice.
• There were appropriately qualified staff in the clinic and staff felt supported to carry out their roles and responsibilities.
• The provider did not have clearly defined and embedded systems, procedures and processes to keep people protected and safeguarded from abuse.

We identified regulations that were not being met and the provider must:

• Ensure that effective systems and processes are in place to safeguard people from abuse.

You can see full details of the regulations not being met at the end of this report.

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

• Review the ordering process for controlled drugs in line with changes in legislation.
• Review the records of clinical decisions where medicines are not supplied in accordance with recognised clinical guidance and best practice.
• Review the policies and procedures to ensure they are up-to-date, reflect current practice and legislation, and encourage continuous improvement.
• Ensure that all doctors working at the clinic have Basic Life Support training and that there is a procedure in place for dealing with medical emergencies.
• Review if reasonable adjustments can be made to accommodate a more diverse population. For example, access for people with disabilities and people whose first language is not English.
• Carry out a risk assessment for Legionella.