Archived: Early Assessment Limited

Updated 25 June 2019

Early Assessment Limited operates from two locations; The Tower Clinic, 8 Tinshill Lane, Cookridge, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS16 7AP and SkinQure Clinic, 1 Cowgate, Welton, East Yorkshire, HU15 1NB. Patients and their parents could choose to visit the clinic which was more conveniently located for them. We visited both locations as part of our inspection. However; at the time of our inspection there had been no regulated activities provided at SkinQure Clinic.

Early Assessment Limited is an independent assessment centre providing private healthcare consultations for children and young people from birth to 18 years of age. Patients and their parents can access screening and diagnostic assessments, investigations, treatment, interventions and follow up for a wide range of neuro-development conditions and behavioural and mental health disorders including:

• Developmental delay including all conditions leading to impaired development which could be neurological, genetic or metabolic conditions.
• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
• Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD).
• Learning Disabilities (LD).
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD).
• Sleeping Disorders
• Continence problems.

The service is provided by a lead Consultant Paediatrician with a special interest in development paediatrics who also contracted support from other professionals as and when clinically necessary. For example; psychologists; speech and language therapists; occupational therapist, physiotherapist and a dietician with specialist skills and knowledge in childhood development.

Early Assessment Limited registered with the Care Quality Commission in May 2015 to provide the Regulated Activity ‘Treatment of disease, disorder or injury’. Further information about the services they provide can be found on the website www.earlyassessment.co.uk

The service operates from 12pm until 5pm on alternate Thursday afternoons. Parents could contact the service directly and could also be referred privately from the General Practitioner (GP), Paediatric Consultant or therapist.

At the time of our inspection the provider was in the process of marketing the service and had only had initial consultations with three patients which did not lead to a full assessment.

How we inspected this service

In preparation for this inspection we asked the provider to submit information about the service. For example; staffing, medicines management, complaints and significant events.

We contacted Healthwatch Leeds and asked them to share any feedback they had received about the service from patients. We were advised that no feedback had been received.

During the inspection we spoke with the lead Consultant Paediatrician, the building owner and the building receptionist. We also spoke with the patient of one patient who was visiting the clinic for an appointment.

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 25 June 2019

This service is rated as Good overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Early Assessment Limited as part of our inspection programme. This was the first time the provider had been inspected since registering with the Care Quality Commission.

Early Assessment Limited is an independent assessment centre providing private services for children from birth to 18 years of age. Patients and their parents can access screening and diagnostic assessments, investigations, treatment, interventions and follow up for a wide range of neuro-development conditions and behavioural and mental health disorders.

The service is provided by a lead Consultant Paediatrician with a special interest in development paediatrics and who is also 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.

On the day of the inspection we spoke with the parent of one patient who was attending the clinic for a follow up appointment. The feedback they provided was positive about the service they had received.

We found that the provider had systems and processes in place to ensure patients received a safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led service. We found some areas where the provider should make improvements. However; following our inspection we received confirmation from the provider that action had been taken to rectify these.

Our key findings were:

• The service had a system in place to retain medical records in line with Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) guidance.
• The provider carried out environmental risk assessments, which took into account the profile of people using the service and those who may be accompanying them.
• The service had systems in place to check that an adult accompanying a child had parental authority.
• The provider had a system in place for recording and acting upon significant events and complaints. However; at the time of our inspection the service was in its infancy and had not yet received any.
• The provider had systems in place to share information with the patients GPs.
• The provider worked with a team of multidisciplinary colleagues to provide effective care and treatment to patients.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Continue to conduct and record temperature checks in line with recommendations from the Legionella Risk Assessment.
• Review process for documenting discussions during peer support meetings with other paediatric consultants working in private practice.
• Continue to regularly review and update risk assessments relating to environment.
• Review and improve the process for verifying the identity of parents during the consent process.

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