Albany Medical Centre

Updated 13 February 2020

Albany Medical Centre is one of four slimming clinics owned by the same provider. The clinic is located on the first floor of 64 Borough High Street. It is very close to London Bridge rail and underground station as well as local bus stops. The clinic consists of a reception room, a separate waiting area, and a consulting room. Parking in the local area is very limited and the clinic does not have step free access.

The clinic provides slimming advice and prescribed medicines to support weight reduction. It is a private service. It is open for walk ins or booked appointments on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 4pm – 7pm.

The clinic is staffed by a receptionist, a regular doctor and a clinic manager. If for any reason, a shift is not filled, staff from another location are able to provide cover.

The Registered Manager was often on site during the clinic opening hours. If not, he was contactable on his mobile phone at all times.

How we inspected this service

Prior to the inspection we reviewed information about the service, including the previous inspection report and information given to us by the provider. We also spoke to the staff and people using the service 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 13 February 2020

This service is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection June - 2019 – not rated)

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 Albany Medical Centre under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act (HSCA) 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This was part of our inspection programme to check whether the service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and to rate the service. Albany Medical Centre provides weight loss services, including prescribing medicines and dietary advice to support weight reduction.

The clinic manager was 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.

We received six completed CQC comments cards from patients to tell us what they thought about the service.

Our key findings were:

•People were positive about the amount of support they received from staff at the service.

•Whilst only open for less than two years, the service had undertaken a number of quality improvement activities.

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.

•The provider should consider arrangement for the management of the retention of medical records in line with Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) guidance in the event that they cease trading.

•The provider should review arrangements for people who do not have English as a first language.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care