Slimmingmedics High Wycombe

Updated 8 June 2021

The Slimmingmedics High Wycombe clinic provides weight loss services, including prescribed medicines and dietary advice to support weight reduction. The clinic is located on the first floor of a shared building in the town centre, and includes a reception area, a waiting room and one consulting room. The clinic is open twice week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays

How we inspected this service

Prior to the inspection we reviewed information about the service, including the previous inspection report and information given to us by the provider. We spoke to the registered manager, receptionist, clinical staff and reviewed a range 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 8 June 2021

This service is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection 06 2019 – Requires improvement)

We carried out an announced focused inspection at Slimmingmedics High Wycombe to follow up on breaches of regulations.

The key questions at this inspection are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services well-led? – Good

We did not inspect caring and responsive services because our monitoring did not indicate a change since the last inspection. The ratings from the last inspection have been carried forward.

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

CQC inspected the service on 5 June 2019 and asked the provider to make improvements regarding Safe care and treatment, Good governance and Fit and proper persons employed. We checked these areas as part of this focused inspection and found they had been resolved.

Slimmingmedics High Wycombe provides weight loss services for adults, including the provision of medicines for the purposes of weight loss under the supervision of a doctor.

This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of some, but not all, of the services it provides. There are some exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of regulated activities and services and these are set out in Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Slimmingmedics High Wycombe provides a range of non-surgical cosmetic interventions which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these 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:

• The provider had clear protocols in place to support safe prescribing and the provision of information and advice to support weight loss.
• There were arrangements in place to support infection prevention procedures including social distancing.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

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

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