The Whitehall Clinic

Updated 25 June 2021

We carried out an inspection of The Whitehall Clinic on 27 May and 3 June 2021.

The Whitehall Clinic is an independent health care provider operated by The Wellington Place Clinic Limited. The service operates from The Whitehall Clinic, 5 Wellington Place, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS1 4AP. The service has a web presence at www.whitehallclinic.com.

The Whitehall Clinic is registered with the Care Quality Commission to deliver the following regulated activities:

• Diagnostic and screening procedures
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury
• Surgical procedures
• Services in slimming clinics

The service delivers a range of health and care services from a large commercial building and is accessed via a staffed reception. Parking, including parking for those with restricted mobility, is available nearby.

Services provided include:

• Private GP services
• Health screening
• Medical weight management
• Dermatology
• Men’s and Women’s health services
• Psychology and mental wellbeing

At The Whitehall Clinic some of the services that are provided are exempt by law from CQC regulation. Therefore, we carried out the inspection in relation to medically related treatment only.

These services were delivered to persons who were aged 18 years and above. No services were offered to those under this age.

The service operates Monday to Friday from 8:30am to 5:30pm, and weekends 11am to 3pm.

The service began operating in June 2020, and at the time of inspection is currently building its client base.

The service is operated by two company officers who oversee and manage the delivery of services. Other staff include consultants, doctors and nurses. Non-clinical staff includes a clinic manager and reception/administration staff.

How we inspected this service

During our inspection we:

• Looked at the systems in place relating to safety and governance of the service.
• Viewed key policies and procedures.
• Explored clinical oversight and how decisions were made.
• Spoke with staff either in person or via telephone interviews.
• Reviewed CQC comment cards where patients shared their views and experiences and spoke with parents of children who used the service.
• Reviewed patient feedback.

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 June 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 comprehensive inspection at The Whitehall Clinic on 27 May 2021 and 3 June 2021 as part of our inspection programme.

The Whitehall Clinic operates as a private doctors service and offers a range of services including private GP consultations, health screening, medical weight management, dermatology, men’s and women’s health, and psychology and mental wellbeing support.

This service is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) under the Health and Social Care Act 2008, in respect of some, but not all, of the services it provides. There are some general exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of service and these are set out in Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. At The Whitehall Clinic some services are provided to patients under arrangements made corporately by their employer or via an insurance provider with whom the servicer user holds an insurance policy (other than a standard health insurance). These types of arrangements are exempt by law from CQC regulation. Therefore, at The Whitehall Clinic, we were only able to inspect the services which are not arranged for patients by their employers or via an insurance provider with whom the patient holds a policy (other than a standard health insurance policy). In addition, The Whitehall Clinic offered a COVID-19 testing service, this too fell outside the scope of our inspection.

One of the directors of the provider organisation, The Wellington Place Clinic Limited, is the registered manager of The Whitehall 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 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.

On the day of inspection we were unable to speak directly to patients in order to gather their views of the service. However, we received six comment cards from people who had used the service. All these comment cards were positive about the care and treatment received. We also viewed public feedback posted on the internet by patients with respect to the treatment and care received. This feedback showed generally high levels of satisfaction (although it should be noted that many of these comments were in respect of the COVID-19 testing service which fell outside the scope of this inspection).

Our key findings were:

• The service was offered on a private, fee-paying basis only and was accessible to people who chose to use it.
• Procedures were safely managed and there were effective levels of patient support and aftercare.
• Staff had the relevant skills, knowledge and experience to deliver the care and treatment offered by the service.
• The service had systems in place to identify, investigate and learn from incidents relating to the safety of patients.
• There were systems, processes and practices in place to safeguard patients and other people, who the service may come into contact with during the course of the delivery of services, from abuse. However, child safeguarding training for the organisation was not at the required level for all members of staff.
• Patient user outcomes were evaluated via reviews and direct feedback. The service had also developed a programme of clinical and non-clinical audit which it was implementing.
• The service shared relevant information with others health professionals with appropriate consent from the patient.
• The service encouraged and valued feedback from patients. We saw that patient feedback was generally positive.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Undertake appropriate assurance checks that staff are suitable to work at the service such as via Disclosure and Barring Service checks. Records of these checks should be maintained and available for scrutiny.
• Continue to embed the clinical and non-clinical audit programme within the service.
• Whilst contact with children in the clinic was limited, the service should ensure staff have been trained to the appropriate level in child safeguarding.
• Consider the installation of secondary temperature monitoring devices in medicine storage refrigerators.

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