Archived: The Slimming Clinic

Updated 31 January 2020

The Slimming Clinic provides weight loss treatment and services, including prescribed medicines, dietary and lifestyle advice, to support weight reduction. The clinic consists of a reception, three consulting rooms, staff kitchen area and toilet. It is located on the ground floor of a commercial and office building near to the town centre. Staff include a service manager, two part-time doctors and two receptionists. The service is open Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

How we inspected this service

Prior to the inspection we reviewed information about this service and other services operated by this provider, including the previous inspection report and information from the provider. We spoke to the registered manager, clinical staff and reviewed a range of 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 31 January 2020

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Slimming Clinic, Bournemouth on 4 December 2019 to rate the service.

The Slimming Clinic, Bournemouth provides weight loss services, including prescribed medicines and dietary advice to support weight reduction.

The clinic manager 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.

27 people provided feedback about the service via comment cards. The majority of the feedback was positive (26 people). Comments about the staff included being polite, tactful, professional, friendly and making people feel valued. Whilst, comments about the service included providing an appreciated service in a clean and tidy environment. However, one person was unhappy with the reduction in opening hours.

Our key findings were:

• Patients were positive about the staff and the service provided.
• Prescribing and record keeping were in line with the parent company’s policies.
• Learning from other services within the parent company was shared and implemented.
• The clinic was in a good state of repair, clean and tidy.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Only supply unlicensed medicines against valid special clinical needs of an individual patient where there is no suitable licensed medicine available.
• To continually encourage the patient to consent to information sharing between the service and their GP.

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