Background to this inspection
Updated
9 March 2020
The London Slimming and Cosmetic Centre provides weight loss treatment and services, including prescribed medicines, dietary and lifestyle advice, to support weight reduction. The clinic is situated on the first floor of 406 Edgeware Road. It is close to the Edgeware Road tube
station and local bus stops. Parking in the local area is limited and the building does not have step free access.
The clinic operates a private service. It is open for walk in and booked appointments on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.
How we inspected this service
Prior to the inspection we reviewed information about the service, including the previous inspection reports and information given to us by the provider. We spoke to the registered manager, a member of the clinical staff 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
9 March 2020
This service is rated as Inadequate overall. (Previous inspection 25 April 2018 - not rated)
The key questions are rated as:
Are services safe? – Inadequate
Are services effective? – Requires improvement
Are services caring? – Good
Are services responsive? – Good
Are services well-led? – Good
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at the London Slimming and Cosmetic centre to rate the service for the provision of safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led services as part of our current inspection programme.
The London Slimming and Cosmetic Centre provides weight loss services under the supervision of a medical doctor, including prescribed medicines, dietary and lifestyle advice to support weight reduction.
This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of some, but not all, of the services it provides. There are some exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of regulated activities and services and these are set out in
and of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. London Slimming and Cosmetic Centre provides a range of non-surgical cosmetic interventions, for example cosmetic injections and chemical peels which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.
The Clinic manager 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.
23 people provided feedback through comment cards about the service. The comments were all positive. Comments about the staff included being very professional, treating patients with respect, being friendly and encouraging about their treatment. Comments about the clinic included providing a clean, tidy and organised environment and flexibility of appointment times.
Our key findings were:
• Patients were positive about their experience at the clinic
• There was a lack of monitoring of the quality of care
• There was a lack of systems to monitor the suitability of staff for employment
• There was a lack of established governance procedures to deliver safe care.
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
• Ensure recruitment procedures are established and operated effectively to ensure only fit and proper persons are employed
• 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
• Document discussions with staff about developments and changes to the service to ensure a consistency of messages.
I am placing this service in special measures. Services placed in special measures will be inspected again within six months. If insufficient improvements have been made such that there remains a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating the service. This will lead to cancelling their registration or to varying the terms of their registration within six months if they do not improve.
The service will be kept under review and if needed could be escalated to urgent enforcement action. Where necessary, another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough improvement we will move to close the service by adopting our proposal to remove this location or cancel the provider’s registration.
Special measures will give people who use the service the reassurance that the care they get should improve.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care