Blend Skin & Beauty Clinic

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 inspection at Blend Skin & Beauty Clinic as part of our inspection programme. The service has not been previously inspected.

Blend Skin & Beauty Clinic is registered with CQC to provide diagnostic and screening procedures, surgical procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury. At the time of the inspection treatments being provided that required CQC registration included surgical thread lifts and botox to treat medical conditions such as hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating).

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 Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Blend Skin & Beauty Clinic provide a range of non-surgical cosmetic interventions which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.

The service has three clinicians conducting regulated activities, one is also the registered provider. The individual provider 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.

Our key findings were:

• The service provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• People received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
• Patients were treated with respect and staff were kind, caring and involved them in decisions about their care.
• Services were tailored to meet the needs of individual patients and were accessible.
• The service demonstrated a culture which focused on the needs of patients and commitment to driving improvement.

We saw the following outstanding practice:

• The provider had a proactive approach to understanding the needs and preferences of patients. They made reasonable adjustments to the service in order to meet the needs of all people who attended the clinic, not just those who had specific treatments that fall into scope of CQC regulated activities. This included additional staff training, communicating with teams internal and external to the service and engaging with the patient population.
• Staff working at the clinic experienced high levels of personal and professional support and engagement with leaders at the clinic. They felt the positive culture contributed to high standards of patient care and satisfaction.

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