Diamond Skin Care

Updated 9 February 2023

• The name of the registered provider is Diamond Skin Care Limited. The registered address of the provider is 129 School Lane, Little Melton, Norwich, Norfolk, NR9 3LB.
• The provider has two registered locations. One is based in Norwich at 25-27 Dr Torren’s Way, Norwich, Costessey, NR5 0GB and we visited this location as part of this inspection. There is a branch site at Eastpoint Consulting Rooms, Lowestoft Rd, Gorleston-on-Sea, NR31 6LA which we did not visit. The second location is in Colchester at Abbey Field Medical Centre, Ypres Road, Colchester, CO2 7UW. This location was not included in this inspection.
• The provider first registered with CQC in 2013 and is registered to provide services to the whole population. The service is available to children and adults. The services offered include those that fall under registration, such as mole and cyst removal, medical acne treatment and Botox injections for the treatment of excessive sweating. Other procedures, which do not fall under the scope of registration include for example, non-surgical wart and verruca removal.
• The clinic is located at 25-27 Dr Torrens Way, within a purpose-built GP practice on the outskirts of Norwich. Diamond Skin Care used two rooms within the premises. There is free parking at this clinic.
• The service was open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm. The service is accessed through booking a free advice call or appointment online on the service website. Patients could also book an appointment by telephone, could complete an online request for a call back within 24 hours (Monday to Friday) and there was a live chat on their website.
• The provider’s website is www.diamondskincare.co.uk

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 the staff present including the Registered Manager and clinical 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 February 2023

This service is rated as Requires improvement overall.

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? – Requires improvement

We previously carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of Diamond Skin Care, Norwich on 8 November 2021. The service was rated as inadequate overall and for providing safe and well led services, requires improvement for providing effective services and good for providing caring and responsive services. As a result of the findings on the day of the inspection, the practice was issued with a warning notice on 18 November 2021. The practice was placed into special measures.

On 1 February 2022, a focused inspection was carried out to review compliance with the breaches identified in the warning notice only. It was found that the provider had made improvements to mitigate the risks identified in the warning notice.

This inspection on 4 January 2023 was an announced comprehensive inspection of Diamond Skin Care Norwich, to follow up on breaches of regulations and to re-rate the service.

Diamond Skin Care Limited 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 a full range of 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 Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 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 Director of Diamond Skin Care 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.

Our key findings were:

• Since the previous inspection in November 2021, improvements had been made by the service. However, the service had not acted upon all the concerns previously identified and did not have all the necessary safety systems and processes in place or oversight of these, to keep people safe.
• The provider had systems in place to keep clinicians up to date with current evidence-based guidance. We saw evidence that clinicians assessed patients’ needs and delivered care and treatment in line with current legislation, standards and guidance.
• Staff treated patients with compassion, respect and kindness and involved them in decisions about their care.
• The service encouraged and valued feedback from patients. Feedback was positive which included timely access to the service.
• There was a lack of understanding of the management of risks and a lack of assurance in the systems and processes to ensure safe and well led services.

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

• Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Continue to implement the new system for recording verbal consent.
• Improve the arrangements for informing patients about the complaints process.

I am taking this service out of special measures. This recognises the improvements that have been made by this service.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services