Archived: 446 Cranbrook Road

Updated 25 November 2019

446 Cranbrook road provides weight loss treatment and services (including prescribed medicines and dietary advice) to support weight reduction. It is now part of Slim Holdings Ltd and there are over 20 other locations across the country. The service is located on the ground floor of a building close to Gant’s Hill underground station. The premises consists of a reception / waiting area, and two consulting rooms. A toilet facility is available on the clinic premises. The service is open all day on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and open half days on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The service employed three doctors and two receptionists. One of the doctors was also the registered manager.

How we inspected this service

Prior to the inspection, we reviewed information about the service, including the previous inspection report and information given to us by the provider. We also spoke to the staff and people using the service 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 25 November 2019

This service is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection September 2017 – not rated.)

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Requires improvement

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 446 Cranbrook Road under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act (HSCA) 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This was part of our inspection programme to check whether the service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and to rate the service.

446 Cranbrook Road provides weight loss services, including prescribing medicines and dietary advice to support weight reduction. One of the doctors 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 22 completed CQC comments cards from patients to tell us what they thought about the service.

Our key findings were:

• Patients using this clinic were very positive about the service and felt listened to.
• Reviews were in place to monitor the effectiveness of treatment provided.
• The systems for monitoring medicines fridge temperatures did not provide assurance that medicine stored in the fridge were safe to use.

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

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

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

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.
• The provider should review arrangements for people who do not have English as a first language.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care