Archived: Early Assessment Limited

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