Fleet Street Clinic

Updated 14 August 2019

Fleet Street clinic is based at 29 Fleet Street, London, EC4Y 1AA.

At the Fleet Street Clinic patients can access private GP care, dental services (which were not inspected at the visit) and travel medicine services (including vaccinations). The practice provides services for patients with pre booked appointments as well as a walk in service. Appointments can also be arranged through their employer. The provider also provides services which are not regulated by the CQC.

The practice is situated in an old Victorian property in Central London. Most of the building is accessible to people who use a wheelchair or mobility aid. Provision is made for consultations and treatment to be carried out on the ground floor. The area is well served by public transport.

Five GPs work at the practice (divided between general GP services and travel services), two Occupational Health GPs, five nurses, two dental staff, practice manager and administration staff.

Consulting hours are 8.45am to 8.00pm Monday to Thursday and 8.45am to 5.30pm on Friday. Appointments were available within 24 hours. Patients could book by telephone, e-mail or by walking into the practice.

We previously visited the Fleet Street Clinic on 14 February 2018. This practice was not rated but we found that the practice was meeting all the regulations.

We Inspected again on 12 June 2019. The team was led by a CQC inspector, with a GP specialist advisor.

Before the inspection we reviewed any notifications received from and about the service, and a standard information questionnaire completed by the service.

During the inspection, we received feedback from people who used the service, interviewed staff, made observations and reviewed 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 14 August 2019

This service is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection February 2018. This inspection was unrated but met all required 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

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at the Fleet Street Clinic on 12 June 2019 as part of our inspection programme.

The service is registered with the CQC to provide a private GP service and travel vaccination service.

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. The Feet Street Clinic provides a range of occupational health assessments which are not within CQCs scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.

The lead doctor 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 received forty completed CQC comment cards. All were positive about the service commenting on the friendly and professional service received.

Our key findings were:

• The service had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the service learned from them and improved.
• The service reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Services were provided to meet the needs of patients.
• Patient feedback for the services offered was consistently positive.
• There were clear responsibilities, roles and systems of accountability to support good governance and management.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Consider enhancing the level 1 safeguarding training of non-clinical staff to level 2 safeguarding.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care