Archived: St Albans Medical Centre

Updated 5 August 2019

• St Albans Medical Centre is provided by Hulbert Estates Limited. The registered manager of the service is M Hulbert.
• The address of the service is St Albans Medical Centre, The White House, 11 London Road, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL1 1LA.
• The telephone number is 01727 812925 and the website address is www.stalbansmedicalcentre.com
• The service is registered with the CQC to provide the following regulated activities:

• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.
• Diagnostic and screening procedures.

• St Albans Medical Centre opened in 2010 and is a privately run medical centre which specialises in the diagnosis of visual impairments such as Cataracts and Glaucoma. The centre carries out some treatments such as the insertion of punctal plugs. The centre does not carry out any other treatment on site and will refer people to a hospital in London for treatment, which is carried out by the centre’s Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon. St Albans Medical Centre is primarily used to carry out the diagnosis, pre-operative consultation and after care for people.

• The service provides care and treatment to approximately eight to 10 patients a week. The service operates two sessions a week; Mondays from 9.30am to 11.30am and Thursdays from 9.30am to 11am.

• The service employs a practice manager and one medical secretary who work two days a week. All consultations are provided on the ground floor. One of the consultation rooms is hired by an independently managed sports massage service.

How we inspected this service

Before our inspection, we gathered and reviewed information from the local Clinical Commissioning Group, the pre-inspection return submitted by the provider and patient feedback submitted online.

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 5 August 2019

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at St Albans Medical Centre on 16 October 2018. We found that this service was not providing safe, effective and well-led care in accordance with the relevant regulations. Requirement notices were served in relation to breaches identified under Regulation 12 Safe care and treatment, Regulation 17 Good governance and Regulation 19 Fit and proper persons employed. We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at St Albans Medical Centre on 14 June 2019 to check on the areas identified in the requirement notices.

The full comprehensive report on the October 2018 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for St Albans Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

St Albans Medical Centre is a privately run medical centre which specialises in the diagnosis of visual impairments such as Cataracts and Glaucoma. The centre carries out some treatments such as the insertion of punctal plugs. (A punctal plug is a small medical device that is inserted into the tear duct of an eye to block the duct. This prevents the drainage of liquid from the eye. They are used to treat dry eyes). The centre does not carry out any other treatment on site and will refer people to a hospital in London for treatment, which is carried out by the centre’s Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon. St Albans Medical Centre is primarily used to carry out the diagnosis, pre-operative consultation and after care for people.

The Consultant Ophthalmologist Surgeon 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.

We received 14 completed CQC comment cards. All the completed cards indicated that patients were treated with kindness and respect. Staff were described as caring and professional. In addition, comment cards described the care and treatment provided as comprehensive and effective.

Our key findings were :

• The service had comprehensive systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen.
• 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 in most areas.
• The system in place for assessing capacity to consent and identification checks for children and young people required strengthening.
• Patient feedback indicated that staff treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients were able to access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
• Structures, processes and systems to support good governance and management were clearly set out, understood and effective in most cases.

The area where the provider must make improvements as they are in breach of a regulation is:

• Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.

The area where the provider should make improvements is:

• Undertake a fire drill on a regular basis.

Please see the specific details on action required at the end of this report.