Archived: The Hove Clinic

Updated 14 March 2019

The Hove Clinic provides private GP services. There is a principal GP and three sessional GPs (two male, two female). The Hove Clinic is also supported by a practice manager and reception/administration staff. The service is provided from the ground and first floors, in a converted residential building. The service has two consulting rooms and administrative areas. Services are offered Monday to Thursday 8am to 8pm, Fridays 8am to 5pm and Saturdays 8:30am to 12pm. The Hove Clinic provides services to adults and children under 18.

This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of the private GP services, sexual health and minor surgery it provides. The service is registered by CQC to provide the following regulated activities; Maternity and midwifery services, Family planning services, Treatment of disease, disorder or injury, Surgical procedures and Diagnostic and screening procedures.

The inspection on 15 January was led by a CQC inspector who was accompanied by a second CQC inspector and a GP specialist advisor.

Information was gathered from the provider and reviewed before the inspection.

During our visit we:

• Spoke with a range of staff, including the principal GP and administrative/reception staff.
• Observed how patients were being cared for in the reception area.
• Looked at information the service used to deliver care and treatment plans.
• Reviewed documents relating to the service.

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 14 March 2019

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 22 March 2018, where we found that the service was not providing safe or well-led care in accordance with the relevant regulations. We carried out an announced focused inspection on 15 January 2019 to ensure that the service was providing care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Our findings were:

Are services safe?

We found that this service was not providing safe care in accordance with the relevant regulations. The impact of our concerns is minor for patients using the service, in terms of the quality and safety of clinical care.

Are services well-led?

We found that this service was not providing well-led care in accordance with the relevant regulations. The impact of our concerns is minor for patients using the service, in terms of the quality and safety of clinical care.

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.

The principal 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.

Our key findings were:

• The service had reviewed and improved systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen.
• There was not an effective process in place to monitor medicines within the service.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

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

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.

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 staff vaccinations to ensure they are maintained in line with current Public Health Guidance.
• Review signage for rooms where oxygen cylinders are stored.
• Review how equipment not owned or used by the services is stored.
• Review systems for recording recruitment checks and training records for employed GPs.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice