The Hale Clinic

Updated 13 September 2022

The Hale Clinic provides medical advice and treatment based on diets, nutritional supplements and detoxification. They provide complementary ecological medicines such as IV Vitamin Therapy to patients who are usually also receiving conventional medicine treatment. They treat both adults and children.

The clinic is open 9am to 5.30pm Tuesday and Wednesday. The practice estimates that it sees approximately 250 patients a year.

Patient facilities are provided on the third floor of the building, which can be accessed by a lift. The staff team include a lead doctor, nurse, a personal assistant and two administrators.

The provider is registered with CQC to carry out regulated activities of Treatment of disease, disorder and injury and Diagnostic and screening.

How we inspected this service

We reviewed information sent to us by the provider remotely prior to attending the site to reduce the time spent on site in line with our Covid-19 inspecting guidance. We spoke with the clinical director, registered manager, two consultants and administrative 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 provided to a third party.

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 September 2022

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 this announced comprehensive inspection of The Hale Clinic under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

The Hale Clinic provides medical advice and treatment based on diets, nutritional supplements and detoxification to people working or staying in London. 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.

This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of the provision of advice or treatment by, or under the supervision of, a medical practitioner, including the prescribing of medicines.

The owner 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.

We did not speak with patients during this inspection.

Our key findings were:

• The service routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. They ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
• The provider had systems in place to protect people from avoidable harm and abuse.
• There was a clear vision to provide a safe, personalised, high quality service.
• All staff we spoke to felt valued by the leaders and said there was a high level of staff support and engagement.
• Patients could access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
• The service had a business development strategy that effectively monitored the service provided to assure safety and patient satisfaction.
• We saw evidence that the provider was engaged with other a peer group in relation to furthering the understanding and developing this area of medicine.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• To consider registering to receive safety alerts directly to their service.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services