Archived: Ivy Health Head Office

Updated 23 May 2022

Ivy Health Head Office provides private GP services online to adults and children over 5 years of age. The service is reviewing its arrangements to return to also offering in-person appointments, as soon as possible. The service has been operating since October 2020 but drastically scaled down operations due to the Lead GP dedicating all their resource to assist NHS services during the Covid-19 pandemic. The service had provided consultation and treatment services to a total of 13 patients by the time of our inspection.

Ivy Health Head Office aims to provide evidence-based proactive and holistic General Practice (GP) consultations and treatment for its patients. The staff are one-part time lead doctor who is the nominated individual of the service, and one service manager that is the registered manager of the service. 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. The provider is now aiming return to business as usual and scaling up operations including to seek input from an additional clinician.

The address of the registered provider is Ivy Health Ltd, 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden London, WC2H 9JQ. Ivy Health Ltd is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide the regulated activity: Treatment of disease, disorder or injury. Regulated activities that are provided online and the registered location is Flat 23, Corrigan Court, Granville Gardens, London, W5 3PA. The provider rents rooms for in person consultations as needed at Charterhouse Clinic, 98 Crawford Street, Marylebone. London W1H 2HL. At the time of our inspection the provider had paused in person consultations and was offering online consultations only whilst it reviewed plans and arrangements, including premises ahead of resuming in-person consultations. The service is open for appointments-based consultations online weekdays 6pm to 9pm and Saturday and Sunday 9am to 6pm; in-person appointments are planned to resume on Tuesdays from 9am to 6pm.

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.

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system and discussing findings with the provider.
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A limited site visit (the premises are not currently in use; online consultations only are offered at the time of our inspection).

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 23 May 2022

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 Ivy Health Head Office as part of our inspection programme of independent health providers. The service usually provides online and in-person General Practice (GP) consultations for adults and children over 5 years of age; but had paused in person consultations at the time of our inspection to review its arrangements after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Our key findings were:

• The service provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• The service organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs.
• Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• The way the service was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centred care.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Continue to review and improve systems and processes to assess, monitor and improve the quality and safety of the services, and mitigate risks.
• Sustain safe and effective operations in line with the strategy for upscaling operations and returning to in person appointments; including premises, emergency medicines and equipment, chaperoning, and items in the doctor’s bag.
• Improve arrangements to formalise record keeping, such as communications with a patients’ own GP.

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