Isokinetic Medical Group

Updated 16 March 2020

Isokinetica Ltd is a private, non NHS service providing sports and exercise medicine related healthcare. The service employs four male doctors all of whom are UK based and on the General Medical Council (GMC) register.

The team consists of Managing Director, Head of International, Medical Director, three doctors, head of rehabilitation, head of administration, head of the front office, physiotherapists, osteopaths, a team of administrative staff and head of maintenance.

Services are provided from: Isokinetic Medical Group, 11 Harley Street, Marylebone, London, W1G 9PF. We visited this location as part of the inspection on 9 January 2020.

The service has a core opening hours from 8:00am to 9:00pm Monday to Friday and 8:00am to 1:00pm Saturday. The service offers extended hours if required for working patients who cannot attend during normal opening hours.

The service’s Head of International 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.

The service is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide the regulated activities of diagnostic and screening procedures, treatment of disease, disorder and injury, and surgical procedures. 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 because other services are out of the scope of CQC registration.

How we inspected this service

Pre-inspection information was gathered and reviewed before the inspection. On the day of the inspection we spoke with the Head of International, Medical Director, Managing Director and Head of Administration. 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 also reviewed patient feedback received by the service.

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 16 March 2020

This service is rated as Good overall. (previously inspected, not rated).

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 Isokinetic Medical Group on 9 January 2020. Isokinetic Medical Group is an independent clinic based in central London which offers private sports and exercise medicine related healthcare. The service also provides treatments for musculoskeletal injuries.

We previously inspected the service on 19 February 2019 at which time we identified governance concerns and served a Requirement Notice under regulation 17 (Good governance) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. The full comprehensive report on the 19 February 2019 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all services’ link for Isokinetic Medical Group on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

The service sent us a plan of action to ensure the service was compliant with the requirements of the regulations. We carried out this comprehensive inspection on 9 January 2020 to review the practice’s action plan, look at the identified breaches set out in the Requirement Notice and to rate the service.

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

• what we found when we inspected
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

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 general exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of service and these are set out in Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

We received 26 patient Care Quality Commission comment cards. All of the comment cards we received were positive about the service. Patients said they were satisfied with the standard of care received and said staff were approachable, committed and caring.

Our key findings were:

• Action had been taken since our last inspection such that appropriate arrangements were now in place governing how the service monitored staff pre-employment checks, staff training and staff appraisals.
• There were adequate systems for reviewing and investigating when things went wrong. For example, we saw evidence the service identified lessons, shared learning and took action as necessary to improve safety.
• The service routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. For example, we saw evidence that audits were used to ensure care and treatment were being delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients could access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
• The leadership, governance and culture promoted the delivery of high-quality person-centred care.

We saw the following examples of outstanding practice:

• The service produced its own bi monthly clinical journal which was circulated to clinicians working at its network of eight global treatment centres and which enabled prompt dissemination of sports medicine best practice.
• The service had introduced its own sports medicine guidelines based upon a combination of a global audit of more than 1000 of its own patients and an extensive international scientific literature review.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Continue to take action to ensure patient surveys capture feedback on the quality of clinical care, as well as capturing existing feedback on customer satisfaction.

• Continue to take action to recruit female doctors to the service.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care