My Menopause Centre Limited

Updated 13 April 2022

My Menopause Centre Limited is registered with the CQC to provide online medical services to patients. The service has a website at https://appointment.mymenopausecentre.com

My Menopause Centre Limited is a private limited company. It has a board of directors, and a team consisting of a clinical director GP, three part-time locum doctors, a Chief Operating Officer who oversees daily operations and provides the overall management of the service, and one administrator.

The service provides online video or telephone consultations with a doctor specialising in the treatment of menopause symptoms. The service offers options to patients to access blood tests and prescribed medicines either privately, or to signpost them through NHS routes. It works collaboratively with the patients’ own registered NHS GP practices to ensure continuity of care. My Menopause Centre Limited also works with corporate bodies to promote awareness of the menopause and offer support to female employees. It widely shares information for general access through its website, and the service is championing diversity issues.

The opening hours for telephone enquiries are from 9am to 5pm from Monday to Friday. Patients can arrange telephone or online video consultations with a doctor at various times throughout the week. Whilst there is some flexibility, these appointments are usually available on Monday evenings, Tuesday afternoons, Wednesday and Thursday mornings and afternoons, Friday morning and on alternate Friday afternoons. Some appointments are also available on a Saturday.

The service is registered with CQC to carry out the regulated activity of treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

How we inspected this service

This inspection was carried out both remotely and by visiting the provider location

This included:

• Conducting interviews using video conferencing.
• Requesting evidence from the provider submitted electronically.
• A random sample review of patients’ notes viewed remotely in conjunction with the clinical director.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we 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 April 2022

This service is rated as Outstanding overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Outstanding

Are services well-led? – Outstanding

We carried out an announced remote comprehensive inspection for My Menopause Centre Limited on 15 March 2022. This is the first time this service has been inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) following its registration as a new service in March 2021.

My Menopause Centre Limited’s mission is to empower women to take control of their menopause via a holistic, evidence-based and personalised approach. The service provides consultations, treatment and advice with experienced doctors specialising in the treatment of menopause symptoms. It is an online service available to all women across the UK. The service also had a remit in terms of promoting evidence-based care and advice that extends across the wider community. This includes the delivery of awareness sessions to employers and their staff, and the general promotion of information via the service’s website and social media.

The clinical director, Dr Clare Spencer, is the CQC registered manager. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the CQC 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.

At this inspection we found:

• We found evidence to uphold the provision of safe care and treatment. Procedures for medicines management were robust to support online prescribing and ongoing monitoring.
• The service worked within evidence-based practice, whilst providing individualised care, and all clinicians were British Menopause Society trained. There was an established programme of quality improvement and clinical audit to demonstrate the efficacy of patient outcomes. There were proactive communication channels with the patients’ registered NHS GPs to ensure joined-up, and continuity of care.
• We found that the service was caring and compassionate towards patients and we observed many positive comments received from those who had used the service.
• The provider gave patients follow up options for treatment or tests both on a private basis or by signposting to appropriate follow up via the NHS, further to an initial private consultation.
• We found that the service had strong leadership from experienced, committed and patient-centred clinical and operational managers.
• The service had highly effective governance and assurance processes. Although this was a new service, it had established a robust assurance framework that was aligned to fundamental standards of care.

We saw the following outstanding practice:

• The service had a purpose to empower women to take control of their menopause and thrive during this phase of their life. This required an approach of raising awareness of the menopause, providing advice and information, and highlighting what treatment options might be available. Recognising that not all women have the option to seek private treatment, the service offered free independent advice and evidence-based information on their website and through social channels. For example, the website included a menopause questionnaire which provided a free personalised assessment, information and advice on the range of options to treat their symptoms.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care