Archived: Urban Medical & Aesthetics Clinic

Updated 18 July 2019

Urban Medical Clinic Limited is a cosmetic and primary care clinic operated by an individual provider who is a qualified GP and has a special interest in dermatology. There are no other staff members. The clinic offers primary care appointments with onward referral to diagnostic and specialist services as appropriate. The service treats adults only.

In the past year, only four patients had attended the clinic for primary care consultations at the clinic. Patients attend the clinic through word of mouth recommendation.

The clinic is currently located in a serviced office building. There is a single consultation room on the first floor which is accessible by a lift and stairs. There is a waiting area on the first floor and an office reception desk which is staffed on the ground floor. The landlord provides a range of property services, for example cleaning and maintenance. The doctor is planning to move the service to dedicated health premises in the near future.

We carried out this inspection of the Urban Medical Clinic on 16 April 2019. The inspection team comprised one CQC inspector and a GP specialist advisor. Before visiting, we reviewed a range of information we hold about the service and asked the service to send us some information about the service which we also reviewed.

During our visit we:

• Interviewed the doctor providing the service.
• Reviewed documentary evidence relating to the service and inspected the facilities, equipment and security arrangements.
• We reviewed several patient records alongside the doctor. We needed to do this to understand how the service assessed and documented patients’ needs, consent and any treatment required.
• Reviewed comment cards completed by patients and cosmetic clients in the days running up to the inspection.

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 formed the framework for the areas we looked at during the inspection.

Updated 18 July 2019

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 Urban Medical Clinic on 16 May 2019 as part of our inspection programme.

Urban Medical Clinic provides a private doctor consultation and treatment service, offering private consultations with a GP. The service treats adults only. Urban Medical Clinic predominantly provides aesthetic cosmetic treatments which are exempt by law from CQC regulation. We inspected the primary medical service and not the aesthetic cosmetic services.

The doctor is the sole clinician practicing at the clinic and is the registered manager of the clinic. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered people. 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 feedback from 11 people about the service, including comment cards, all of which were very positive about the service. (We could not identify comments specifically made by patients attending the service for medical consultations). People indicated that they were always treated with kindness and respect and achieved good outcomes. The doctor was described as caring, thorough and professional.

Our key findings were:

• Systems and processes were in place to keep people safe. The doctor was aware of their responsibility to safeguard patients at risk of abuse and had undertaken adult safeguarding to level three.
• The provider was aware of current evidence based guidance and they had the skills, knowledge and experience to provide the service.
• The provider was aware of their responsibility to respect people’s diversity and human rights.
• The service had systems and processes in place to ensure that patients were treated with compassion, dignity and respect.
• The service was responsive to patients’ needs. The service was accessible during the day, evenings and at the weekend.
• There was a complaints procedure in place and information on how to complain was readily available.
• Governance arrangements were in place. There were clear responsibilities, roles and systems of accountability to support good governance and management.
• The service had appropriate facilities and was equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• The service had systems in place to collect and act on feedback from patients.

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

• Document any safety-netting advice provided to patients in the medical records.
• Carry out a risk assessment before using the laser (recently purchased) for medical treatments.
• Undertake safeguarding children training to level 3.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care