Archived: Lotus Healthcare

Updated 9 July 2018

Lotus Healthcare offers general practice services, including travel medicines, health screening, joint injections and contraceptive implants. The service also offers medical acupuncture, which is not regulated by CQC. The service offers consultation and treatment only to patients over the age of 16.

Lotus Healthcare sees patients at 5 Devonshire Place, London W1G 6HL, the premises of the another healthcare provider. A number of other services operate from the premises, including other GPs and consultant services. These are registered with the CQC separately.

The service is open on Wednesday 9am to 1pm. Outside of these hours and when the GP is unavailable, there was an informal arrangement to with another independent GP to review test results and see patients if required. Home visits can be provided if required.

There is one GP, a practice administrator and a record summariser. Lotus Healthcare has access to reception and nursing staff employed by the facilities provider, although the precise details of this arrangement were not documented.

The GP also works in the NHS and privately at another location. These activities are not part of the Lotus Healthcare registration and were therefore not considered at this inspection.

The practice administrator and a record summariser are based in an NHS GP practice in East London. No Lotus Healthcare patients are seen at this address.

We visited the Lotus Healthcare premises at 5 Devonshire Place on 2 May 2018. The team was led by a CQC inspector, with a GP specialist advisor.

Before the inspection we reviewed notifications received from and about the service, and a standard information questionnaire completed by the service.

During the inspection, we received feedback from people who used the service, interviewed staff, made observations and reviewed 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 9 July 2018

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 2 May 2018 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 care 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 not providing well-led care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

We carried out this inspection 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 service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Lotus Healthcare provides private general practitioner services.

This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of some, but not all, of the private medical services it provides. There are some exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of service and these are set out in Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Lotus Healthcare provides medical acupuncture and medico-legal services, which are not regulated by CQQ.

The GP 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.

Seven people provided feedback about the service, which was wholly positive.

Our key findings were:

• The service had assumed that there were adequate systems in place to ensure the safety of the premises and staffing, but had not verified this with the organisation that provided the premises and reception and nursing staff.
• Governance systems did not reflect the service as currently delivered, and did not allow the provider to fulfil its responsibility to ensure that all aspects of the service were delivered in line with regulations.
• The service reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Services were provided to meet the needs of patients.
• Patient feedback for the services offered was consistently positive.

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

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.
• Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.
• Ensure persons employed in the provision of the regulated activity receive the appropriate support, training, professional development, supervision and appraisal necessary to enable them to carry out the duties.
• Ensure recruitment procedures are established and operated effectively to ensure only fit and proper persons are employed. Ensure specified information is available regarding each person employed. Ensure, where appropriate, persons employed are registered with the relevant professional body.

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

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

• Review how patients who wish to complain can find details of the procedure.