Archived: Transform Hospital Group Exeter

Updated 2 August 2021

The registered provider of this service is Transform Hospital Group Ltd, based at 192 Altrincham Road, Manchester, M22 4RZ.

Transform Hospital Group Ltd has 10 registered locations with CQC, comprising of nine consultation clinics and two hospitals.

For this inspection we visited the consultation clinic in Exeter:

Transform Hospital Group Exeter

Third Floor

31-32 Southernhay East

Exeter

Devon

EX1 1NS

Website: https://thehospitalgroup.org/clinics/clinic/exeter-clinic

Transform Hospital Group Exeter Clinic is registered as an independent doctors consultation service for patients over the age of 18. It is registered with CQC for one regulated activity: Treatment of disease, disorder or injury. Patients attend the clinic for assessment and advice about surgical procedures they wish to have, including gastric band (weight loss), rhinoplasty (plastic surgery to the nose) and breast augmentation (breast enlargement).

The clinic location at Exeter is open and responsive to patient demand between the hours of Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm and Saturday and Sunday 10am to 5pm. Initial discussions and assessments are completed remotely by phone before a face to face appointment is arranged with the consultant surgeon.

How we inspected this service

Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our inspections differently. In February 2021, we carried out a call with the provider and key staff to do a remote assessment of the service.

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This included:

• Conducting staff interviews
• Requesting evidence from the provider
• A short site visit

Due to the current pandemic we were unable to obtain comments from patients via our normal process of asking the provider to send a CQC survey out to all patients seen in the last three months. We did not receive any feedback from patients as part of this inspection. However, we saw from internal surveys and reviews on social media that clients were consistently positive about the service, describing staff as professional, kind, polite, non judgemental and caring.

At the inspection we looked at feedback the service had received from patients, interviewed staff, toured the premises and reviewed 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 2 August 2021

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 inspection of the Transform Hospital Group Exeter clinic on 23 June 2021.

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.

Transform Hospital Group Limited operates from nine clinics across England which are used for initial consultations between patients and surgeons as well as post-operative care. The provider runs two independent hospitals located at Bromsgrove and Manchester. Normally patients are able to choose from one of the two locations where they would like to have their surgical procedure.

We looked at consultation services during this inspection. This service is registered with Care Quality Commission (CQC) under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to provide treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

Transform Hospital Group Exeter has a 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 clinic had adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients could access advice, consultations and post operative care in a timely way.
• Staff had the information they needed to deliver safe care and treatment to patients.
• Exeter Clinic had a good safety record.
• Quality improvement systems routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of pre-surgical consultations, post-operative care and support, and the outcomes for patients.
• Patient consent to care and treatment was obtained and recorded in line with national guidance.
• Staff treated patients with kindness, respect and compassion.
• Patients were respected and their privacy and dignity was maintained.
• The provider took complaints, concerns and comments seriously and responded to them appropriately to improve the quality of care.
• Structures, processes and systems to support good governance were clearly set out, understood and effective. .

The areas where the provider should make improvements are :

Provide staff access to a risk assessment tool to facilitate early identification of and action to take if a patient has suspected early sepsis.

• Review national guidance on the safeguarding training competencies required for registered nurses and implement this.
• Review and standardise post operative assessment of pain and healing for patients being assessed remotely by phone and/or at the clinic.
• Raise awareness of the Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU) scheme including who the named FTSU guardian is for the company.

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