So Aesthetics

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

The service was well managed. Governance played a key part in meetings. Leaders ensured audits and processes were an agenda item at all regular meetings. Leaders and staff were clear about their roles and responsibilities. Staff felt they were listened to by leaders, and they contributed to the development of the service and discussions about best practice.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Staff said the service had a clear vision for the future. This included building on existing medical procedures to make them more widely available and looking at ways to introduce new ones in the future. Staff told us they thought the culture of the service made it a great place to work and had a good working atmosphere.

The provider had vision and aims which set out how they wanted the service to work. Leaders ensured these were developed and discussed with staff so the vision for the practice was shared by everyone.

Staff told us they felt supported by the management team. Staff reported managers were visible and approachable. They said they enjoyed coming to work and felt lucky to work for people who cared about their wellbeing.

Leaders encouraged staff development across all roles within the service. They wanted people to receive high levels of treatment from staff who were confident in their practice. Leaders had an appropriate recruitment policy in place. Staff recruitment files demonstrated the policy was followed, and good practice was used during recruitment.

Staff were confident in raising concerns. They knew who to speak to and felt they would be listened to. Leaders investigated any concerns raised while respecting the confidentiality of the staff member involved. They took action when they needed to, and learning was shared when appropriate. Complaints and concerns were fully investigated and when something went wrong, people received a sincere and timely apology.

Leaders encouraged a positive culture where people felt they could speak up. The practice had their own Freedom to Speak Up procedure and an identified member of staff for people to speak to.

All staff had completed training in equality, diversity, and inclusion. Staff confirmed they understood the policy and how it related to the Equality Act 2010 and people with protected characteristics such as age, gender, religion, or disability. Staff felt equality was considered in the recruitment of new members of the team.

The service had an equality, diversity, inclusion, and human rights policy. The policy contained details of how the practice was committed to both eliminating discrimination and encouraging diversity amongst the workforce, patients, and service users. Staff were offered flexible working and reasonable adjustments so they could do their role well.

Staff told us they had opportunity to attend meetings and had protected time to action learning after team meetings and incidents, complete audits, undertake training and develop their competency.

Leaders managed governance well. They did this through quality assurance activities and clinical audits. Staff took responsibility for their own areas of work, and this was discussed at governance meetings. The service had a clear management structure in place with designated staff members who acted as leads for clinical and non-clinical areas. The practice used digital services securely and effectively and conformed to relevant digital and information security standards. There were clear arrangements in place for the availability, integrity and confidentiality of data, records, and data management systems. Leaders managed risks to the service well. There were effective arrangements for identifying, managing, and mitigating risks including a risk register where risks, actions and outcomes were recorded. This included risk to the business due to outbreaks such as Covid 19 and how the business would be impacted. Areas for improvement such as adding a new clinic room were also recorded on the risk register. A business continuity plan (BCP) was in place to ensure staff would know what to do in the case of illness or inclement weather such as snow.

People spoke positively of the community fundraising undertaken by staff working at the service. Staff and leaders are open and transparent, and they collaborate with all relevant external stakeholders and agencies.

Staff and leaders worked in partnership with key organisations to support care provision, service development and joined-up care. Staff gave examples of the referrals they made to menopause clinics and independent physiotherapists so people could access additional professional support if they needed to.

We did not receive any feedback from partners, but the provider showed us evidence of the people and organisations they worked with. The score for this quality statement is based on this evidence.

Staff and leaders engaged with people, communities, and partners to share learning with each other that resulted in continuous improvements to the service. For example, following an incident in a local shop where staff attended to help someone who had collapsed it was identified the service should have a defibrillator onsite as the nearest one locally was too far away from the premises. Staff and leaders used local networks to identify new or innovative ideas that could lead to better outcomes for people. The provider had a service level agreement with the local hospital to use histopathology (study of tissues under a microscope to look for disease) services. This meant leaders had direct access to professionals in this area who shared their expertise and discussed cases. Leaders had access to support from the NHS through other roles and clinicians liaised with and mentored other clinicians such as dermatology nurses based within the NHS.

Staff told us there was a focus on continuous learning and improvement. They used all feedback as an opportunity to improve the services offered. iFor example, following feedback where the person felt they had not fully understood the risks the service responded by making improvements to the consent form and how it was talked though with peopel before treatment to ensure all risks were discussed and the person receiving treatment was fully informed. The person who gave this feedback was contacted to discuss the improvements that had been made. .

Leaders considered all levels of feedback to ensure they were continually learning and improving. Feedback was discussed at team meetings and individually so staff could be involeved in any improvements being made.