Medloop

Updated 22 January 2024

Medloop is registered with CQC at the following address: 24 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP. The provider told us that this is a postal address and where their finance and accountants office is based and no services are delivered from this site. The address where staff meet for staff meetings, to work from occasionally and where we met to carry out the inspection is: We Work Offices, Northwest House, 119 Marylebone Road NW1 5PU.

The service website can be accessed through the following link: https://medloop.co/

Medloop provides a digital remote service to assist GP practices and Primary Care Networks (PCNs) in providing additional capacity for specific clinical roles or who may be struggling to meet their patient consultation demands. The services uses a range of clinicians including GPs, advanced nurse practitioners, advanced clinical practitioners, paramedics and clinical pharmacists to provide remote consultation and or treatment. Patients are referred to the service through their GP practice and the practice will decide if the Medloop company name is visible to patients or they would like Medloop to work as an extension of their practice. The services core hours are Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm. Out of hours arrangements are Monday to Friday 6pm- 8pm and Saturday 9am to 1pm.

How we inspected this service

Before visiting, we reviewed a range of information we hold about the service and asked them to send us some pre-inspection information which we reviewed.

During our inspection we:

• Spoke with the registered manager/nominated individual and operations lead face to face.
• Reviewed files, practice policies and procedures and other records concerned with running the service.
• Reviewed a sample of service user records.
• Looked at information the service used to deliver care and treatment plans.

To get to the heart of customers’ 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 22 January 2024

We rated this service as Requires improvement overall. This is the first inspection of this service.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Requires improvement

Are services effective? – Requires improvement

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Requires improvement

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Medloop on 19 September and 28 September 2023 as part of our inspection programme. This service first registered by CQC on 19 April 2022 and are registered for the regulated activities, diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services, treatment of disease, disorder and injury and transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely.

The service is a digital health provider who provide a remote overspill service for NHS GP practices using a remote clinical workforce. The service provides a doctor and Allied Health Professional (AHP) service at both practice level and Primary Care Network (PCN) level and are currently located within 3 Integrated Care Systems (ICS) across the country. The service provides care and treatment to approximately 120,000 patients in total and provides approximately 1200 appointments per week. They also provide a PCN level minor ailments hub which is located in Hertfordshire.

The registered manager is the chief medical officer (CMO) for the company. 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 chief executive officer (CEO) is the nominated individual for the company.

At this inspection we found:

• The service did not routinely review the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided.
• The service did not routinely use information about patients’ outcomes to make improvements.
• The service did not take part in quality improvement activity, for example clinical audits or prescribing trends. They did undertake quarterly reviews of consultations.
• Staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients could access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

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.

(Please see the specific details on action required at the end of this report).

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Establish regular, documented supervision and 121 meetings with staff to identify any issues that need addressing.
• Continue to take action to collect patient feedback specifically regarding the services offered in order to identify trends and make improvements.
• Ensure information on how to make a complaint is available on the services’ website.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Health and Care