London Hormone Clinic Limited

Updated 22 July 2022

London Hormone Clinic is an independent clinic in central London.

Services are provided from: London Hormone Clinic, 106 Harley Street, London W1G 7JE. We visited this location as part of the inspection on 25 May 2022.

The service offers a range of bespoke healthcare services to adults and specialises in individualised bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and functional medicine for women.

The service was open to adults only.

Online services can be accessed from the practice website: www.londonhormoneclinic.com

The clinic is open from 9.15am to 5pm Monday to Thursday and from 9.15am to 4pm on every Friday.

Patient facilities are provided on the third floor of the building. The staff team include four doctors, two personal assistants, a secretary and an administrative manager.

The service is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide the regulated activities of diagnostic and screening procedures, treatment of disease, disorder and injury and family planning. This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of the services it provides.

How we inspected this service

Pre-inspection information was gathered and reviewed before the inspection. We spoke with a range of clinical and non-clinical staff. We looked at records related to patient assessments and the provision of care and treatment. We also reviewed documentation related to the management of the service. We reviewed patient feedback collected 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 22 July 2022

This service is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection: 27 September 2018 – unrated).

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 London Hormone Clinic as part of our inspection programme.

London Hormone Clinic is an independent clinic in central London, which provides a range of bespoke healthcare services to adults and specialises in individualised bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and functional medicine for women.

The senior doctor 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.

For reasons of safety and infection prevention and control related to the COVID-19 pandemic, we did not commission patient feedback with CQC comment cards. We did not speak to any patients during this inspection.

Our key findings were:

• The service specialised in individualised bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and functional medicine for women. Patients were treated with unlicensed compounded medicines and systems were in place to ensure this was carried out safely.
• There was evidence of quality improvement activity including clinical audits.
• Consultations were comprehensive and undertaken in a professional manner.
• Consent procedures were in place and these were in line with legal requirements.
• There was an infection prevention and control policy and procedures were in place to reduce the risk and spread of infection.
• Appointments were available on a pre-bookable basis. The service provided consultations face to face, via telephone and via video calls.
• The service proactively gathered feedback from the patients.
• Information about services and how to complain was available.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the Duty of Candour.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review legionella risk assessment.
• Develop a documented fire evacuation plan to identify how staff could support patients with mobility problems to vacate the premises.
• Review contents of the consent form and consider including details about the risks associated with the use of an unlicensed medicine.
• Consider how to improve access to patients with hearing difficulties.
• Follow the complaint policy and include information on the complainant’s right to escalate the complaint if dissatisfied with the response.

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