The Care Quality Commission
  • Hospital
  • Independent hospital

Accuvision Eye Care Clinic - Solihull

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

3 The Courtyard, 707 Warwick Road, Solihull, West Midlands, B91 3DA 0330 123 2020

Provided and run by:
Accuvision Limited

All Inspections

24 January 2024

During a routine inspection

This was the first time we rated this service, we rated it as good because:

  • The service had enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect patients from abuse, and managed safety well. The service generally controlled infection risk well. Staff assessed risks to patients, acted on them and kept good care records. They generally managed medicines well. The service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them.
  • Staff provided good care and treatment, gave patients enough to eat and drink and gave them pain relief when they needed it. Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information. Services were available 7 days a week.
  • Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, took account of their individual needs, and helped them understand their conditions. They provided emotional support to patients, families and carers.
  • The service planned care to meet the needs of local people, took account of patients’ individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback. People could access the service when they needed it and did not have to wait too long for treatment.
  • Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills. Staff understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work. Staff felt respected, supported, and valued. They were focused on the needs of patients receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged well with patients and the community to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to improving services continually.

However:

  • We found sharps bins and pharmacy disposable bins on the floor, these were not labelled or closed. They were not stored safely and securely.
  • We found eye drops in an unlocked drawer in the laser room, although the laser room was locked. Staff had access to the eye drops when in the room.
  • We saw cleaning substances on shelves in the cleaners cupboard that was not locked. This did not comply with Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations 2002.
  • Governance meeting minutes were not always detailed or shared with staff.

31 October and 19 November 2017

During a routine inspection

Accuvision Ltd was established in London, UK in December 2001. The provider opened the Solihull clinic in May 2005.

Accuvision Laser Eye Clinic in Solihull is one of three clinics nationwide run by an independent healthcare provider. It primarily offers corneal laser vision correction surgery and treatments for short-sightedness (myopia), long-sightedness (hyperopia), astigmatism (a refractive error), keratoconus treatment (a progressive eye disease), age related long-sightedness (presbyopia) and access to non-laser cataract surgery through another provider.

We inspected Accuvision Solihull as part of our comprehensive programme, using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the announced part of the inspection on 31 October 2017 along with an unannounced visit to the clinic on 19 November 2017.

The Solihull clinic operates on an appointment basis depending on patients’ needs.

The provider mainly manages administrative work at the London clinic and the whole team of 20 staff work between all three of the clinic locations as needed.

On entry to the clinic ground floor there is a waiting room with refreshments available to patients, the clinic office, toilets, a consulting room and a diagnostic room, a preparation room and a laser treatment room.

The first floor consists of a combined waiting and recovery area, three consulting rooms, a cleaner’s room, store room and three toilets.

The second floor is restricted to staff access only and is primarily an administration and storage area with one staff toilet.

The clinic has parking available for patients and the ground floor is accessible to wheelchair users.

We inspected laser eye surgery.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so, we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

Services we do not rate

We regulate refractive eye surgery but we do not currently have a legal duty to rate them when they are provided as a single specialty service. We highlight good practice and issues that service providers need to improve and take regulatory action as necessary.

14/12/2015

During a routine inspection

The inspection took place on 14 December 2015. This was an unannounced responsive inspection. We had received allegations to the effect there was a risk that staff were undertaking procedures for which they were not qualified.

We found no evidence that the allegations could be substantiated. We found that all the staff employed by the service were qualified, competent and skilled, the only exception being the cleaning contract staff who had not received any training in their role.

We inspected the following domains; safe, effective and well-led. These domains were identified as the most appropriate to help us to determine if the allegations were true and if any members of the public had been put and risk and continued to be so.

We have not rated this inspection as our policy does not allow for that until April 2016.

The provider has two other locations from which it conducts regulated activity. We attempted to inspect both of these on the same day. However only the London office was open. Please note the London location has a head office function, as well as undertaking the regulated activity.

Our key findings were as follows:

  • Staff were suitably qualified competent and skilled to undertake their roles.

  • On call and out of hours support was available for patients following their procedures.

  • Equipment management and maintenance was well maintained.

  • We saw that patients were seen promptly for their appointments.

  • Although audit was limited, where it was undertaken we saw good learning, resulting in positive change for patients.

However, there were also areas of poor practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

  • No accredited training had been offered to housekeeping personnel who had been employed for general cleaning duties.However we noted that the premises were visibly clean.

  • The written infection control policy was not available for staff to refer to.

  • We saw limited benchmarking data which compared patient outcomes in this service with those in similar services.

  • The privacy of patients was compromised by their notes being stored on an open shelf in an office where patients were invited to on arrival to the clinic.

  • Governance arrangements needed strengthening to identify more areas for improvement.

In addition the provider should:

  • Establish a clear incident reporting mechanism that includes a trigger for the Duty of Candour requirement.

  • Improve the arrangements for storing patients’ records while they are in use, to protect them from casual view.

  • Strengthen governance arrangements including internal audit, risk management and frequency of governance meetings/communications.

We will follow up with a full comprehensive inspection in line with our policy and risk.

Professor Sir Mike Richards

Chief Inspector of Hospitals

19 December 2013

During a routine inspection

We carried out a routine inspection at Accuvision on 19 December 2013. We looked at how people were involved and treated at each stage of their care. We looked at how the service recruited staff and how the service managed complaints. We conducted telephone interviews with people who used the service.

Accuvision provides a wide range of specialist eye laser corrective treatments including long-sight, short-sight, astigmatism, reading vision and cataracts. All treatments were for privately funded patients only.

We saw that the service provided people with appropriate information about their care and treatment. Feedback from people who had used the service confirmed that they were treated with dignity and respect.

We spoke with four people who used the service. All four people stated they were very happy with their care and treatment, one stated, 'Excellent care and treatment, I'm delighted'.

We spoke with three staff members and reviewed how staff were recruited and trained and saw the service had a robust recruitment and training programme in place.

We looked at the complaints process and how complaints and concerns were managed. We saw there was a clear complaints procedure for staff to follow. However, the service did not routinely record or respond to comments and concerns raised by people who used the service.

13 December 2012

During a routine inspection

On the day of our visit there were no laser procedures in progress but there were follow-up appointments for people who had treatment the day before and consultation appointments for those considering treatment.

At our request the optometrist gave a CQC leaflet to all patients attending and two were able to talk to us. We were also able to view the results from the annual patient appraisal, examine a file of patient questionnaires and comments for 2012 and look at policy and procedure files.

We were told that staff were 'confidence inspiring' and 'I was delighted with the whole experience'.

There was a general view that the service was not sales driven and that people were given enough information to make choices about their treatment. Comments also suggested that the staff were very proficient and that people were happy with the service they received and would recommend it to others.