Archived: The Erme Clinic

Updated 9 August 2021

The Erme Clinic is operated by Dr R J Harker & Mr P W Harker and operates from premises at 113 Mannamead Road, Plymouth, Devon, PL3 5LL which are shared with an independent, non-related, dental service.

A link to the clinic’s website is below:

https://www.ermeclinic.co.uk

The clinic first registered with the CQC in May 2019 and is registered to treat patients aged 18 and over. The services offered include those that fall under regulated activities, such as mole checks/removal, minor operations (removal of skin tags, warts and cosmetic blemishes), and medical acne treatment. Other procedures, that are not required to be registered include non-surgical wart and verruca removal, lip fillers, skin peels, anti-ageing injectables, and dermal fillers.

The clinic is located in a largely residential area on the outskirts of Plymouth. There is free on street parking surrounding the clinic. It is open Monday to Saturday between 9am and 6pm for telephone or email contact and advice. Clinic hours are Friday and Saturday between 9am and 2pm.

Facilities on the ground floor include the reception area, one treatment room, an administration area, staff kitchen area, and a toilet.

How we inspected this service

Before the inspection, we asked the provider to send us some information, which was reviewed prior to the inspection day. We also reviewed information held by CQC on our internal systems.

During the inspection we spoke with all the staff present including the registered manager, the office manager, and reception staff. We made observations of the facilities and service provision and reviewed documents, records and information held by 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 9 August 2021

This service is rated as Good overall.

This service was registered by the CQC on 8 May 2019 and this is the first time since then that it has been inspected and rated.

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 The Erme Clinic on 5 June 2021 as part of our inspection programme.

The Erme Clinic is registered under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to provide the following regulated activities:

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

This service provides independent dermatology services, offering a mix of regulated skin treatments as well as other non-regulated aesthetic treatments. There are some exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of regulated activities and services and these are set out in and of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. We only inspected and reported on the services which are within the scope of registration with the CQC.

The medical director and clinical practitioner 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.

Due to the current pandemic we were unable to obtain comments from patients via our normal process of asking the provider to place comment cards within the service location. However, we saw from internal surveys and reviews on social media that patients were consistently positive about the service, describing staff as professional, kind, polite, non-judgemental and caring. Patients also commented on the clinic being well maintained and clean. We did not speak with patients on the day, as there were none attending for regulated activities.

Our key findings were:

• The service had safety systems and processes in place to keep people safe. There were systems to identify, monitor and manage risks and to learn from incidents.
• There were regular reviews of the effectiveness of treatments, services and procedures to ensure care and treatment was delivered in line with evidence-based guidelines.
• Staff treated patients with compassion, respect and kindness and involved them in decisions about their care.
• There was a clear strategy and vision for the service. The leadership and governance arrangements promoted good quality care.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care