Broadgate Spine & Joint Clinic Limited

Updated 7 November 2019

The service is provided from rented premises at 65 London Wall, London, EC2M 5TU. The provider is registered with the Care Quality Commission to carry out the regulated activities Diagnostic and screening procedures and Treatment of disease, disorder; and injury.

The provider began operating in 2003 offering services relating to spine and joint conditions. It later introduced a general practice service which now predominates, accounting for 90% of the business. The business is currently being further reorganised.

The service is provided only to adults over the age of 18 and offers private GP appointments including: blood tests; dietary advice; psychiatric support; flu vaccinations; travel clinic, providing travel vaccinations; sexual health, such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease testing; and health screening including cervical and breast cancer screening. The service is not intended to provide care for patients with long-term health conditions. Details of the service can be found on the provider’s website - www.broadgategp.co.uk

The service operates Mondays to Thursdays between 8.00am – 6.30pm and Fridays between 8.30 am – 6.00pm. Standard appointments, 15 minutes long, are available throughout the day. In addition, patients may attend on a walk-in basis, but may be required to wait for the next available slot. An average of 400 patient appointments are provided per month. There is a lead GP and a consultant psychiatrist. Planned occasional absence is covered by locums. The administrative team is made up of a lead receptionist, who is currently training for the role of practice manager, and two receptionists.

Before visiting, we reviewed a range of information we hold about the service. The provider’s lead GP, and administrative staff were present on the day of our visit. As part of the ongoing business reorganisation, the lead GP will be applying for registration as Registered Manager, replacing the current one. 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. The reorganisation was due to be finalised shortly after our inspection and involved new rooms at the location being taken over to be used for service provision.

During our inspection we:

• Spoke to the lead GP and service staff.
• Looked at information used to deliver the service and a sample of patients’ healthcare records.
• Reviewed feedback from 50 patients who completed CQC comments cards as part of the inspection process.

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 7 November 2019

This service is rated as Good overall. Previous inspection 17 January 2019, when we found the provider was meeting the relevant standards.

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

Broadgate Spine & Joint Clinic Limited (the provider) offers private general practice appointments, including blood tests; dietary advice; psychiatric support; flu vaccinations; travel clinic, providing travel vaccinations; sexual health, such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease testing; and health screening including cervical and breast cancer screening. Services are provided only to adults, aged over 18 years.

We last inspected the service in January 2019, using our previous methodology. We found the provider was meeting the requirements of regulations, but we did not apply a rating. We carried out this announced comprehensive inspection on 30 September 2019, as part of our current inspection programme, to apply a rating.

Our key findings were:

• The provider had good systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. There were processes in place to ensure when incidents did occur they were investigated and learned from.
• Patients could access care and treatment from the provider within an appropriate timescale to meet their needs. Patients received coordinated and person-centred care.
• Staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• The provider had implemented appropriate policies for safeguarding of vulnerable adults and children, and all staff had received up-to-date safeguarding training appropriate to their role.
• Staff understood their responsibilities to manage emergencies and to recognise those in need of urgent medical attention.
• We saw no evidence of discrimination when making care and treatment decisions.

We received feedback from 50 patients using the service. Patients were consistently positive about the service they received, telling us that: they found it easy to access care, all staff treated them with dignity and respect and they felt involved in all decisions about their care.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care