Archived: St. Michael's Clinic

Updated 15 January 2020

• St Michael’s Skin Clinic is based at St Michael’s Road Shrewsbury SY1 2HE. The clinic is registered with CQC for treatment of disease, disorder or injury; surgical procedures; diagnostic and screening procedures and is an Independent Healthcare Company. The provider has a clinic located in Much Wenlock, Shropshire which, is registered separately with CQC and was not inspected as part of this inspection.

The service is led by a director partnership who own the business and the Shrewsbury premises from which they provide service.

The service employ a further two dermatology consultants, and three speciality doctors working on a sessional basis. They have five GPs with a special interest working  on an arranged sessional basis and a team of 18 nurses, two of whom are Clinical Nurse Specialists who run nurse led clinics. The clinical team are supported by a team of 21 administrative staff. The service employ a dedicated NHS business manager.

• The service is a dermatology service which functions as an independent provider to the NHS for 83% of its work. The service is commissioned by three Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG’s) which are either in or on the border of Shropshire, Powys, and Telford and Wrekin. They also take out of area referrals in line with NHS Tariff.

• The service was set up in 2003 and moved into its current premises in 2011.

• The clinic offers a dermatology service to children over 12 years of age and adults.

• The clinic is open between 9am and 8pm Monday to Thursday and 9am to 5pm on Friday.
• The clinic does not offer weekend appointments.

• Further details about the clinic can be found on their website:

Updated 15 January 2020

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at St Michael’s Clinic as part of our inspection programme, to provide the service with a rating.

St Michael’s Skin Clinic is based in Shrewsbury, Shropshire and provides a dermatology service to NHS patients within Telford and Wrekin, Shropshire and Powys.

The 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 and of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. St Michael’s Skin Clinic provides a range of non-surgical cosmetic interventions, for example botulinum toxin injections and dermal fillers which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.

As a provider of Independent Healthcare, the service is able to offer a private dermatological service to patients within those areas offered to the NHS and beyond those geographical boundaries.

The service is managed from St Michael’s Skin Clinic Shrewsbury, and the directors of the company are Dr Stephen Murdoch and Mrs Alison Murdoch.

Dr Stephen Murdoch 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.

In preparation for the inspection, the service had been sent blank comment cards and a small collection box from CQC. The team had encouraged patients to fill these in and we received a total of 18 completed comment cards which, included patients who had received diagnosis or treatment. All 18 of the cards were positive about the service and care received. Feedback obtained clearly demonstrated positive outcomes for patients. Patients spoke highly of the care and treatment they had received. They described staff as friendly, efficient, helpful and caring. They also commented that their care was better at the service than at any hospital they had been to.

We spoke with two patients during the inspection, both told us that the staff were nice and one of the patients told us they knew what to expect during their ongoing treatment; the other was at the beginning of the consultation process. Staff we spoke with told us they were well supported in their work and were proud to be part of a team which provided a high-quality service.

Our key findings were :

• Patients received detailed and clear information about their proposed treatment which enabled them to make an informed decision.

• Patients were offered convenient, timely and flexible appointments.

• Staff helped patients to be involved in decisions about their care.

• There were effective procedures in place for monitoring and managing risks to patient and staff safety. For example, there were arrangements to prevent the spread of infection. There were written arrangements in place between the service and the local hospital for transferring the care of patients with a cancer diagnosis. There were written transfer agreements in place should a patient require urgent transfer to hospital.

• The service had a structured programme of quality improvement activity and routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care provided.

• There was effective leadership, management and governance arrangements in place that assured the delivery of high-quality care and treatment.

• The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
• Review the Significant Event reporting policy and procedure.
• Complete root cause analysis and all significant event forms.
• Further develop the system for managing safety alerts.
• Formalise the procedure for using and managing contact allergens.
• Develop a structured audit plan.
• Review the process for recording complaints.
• Complete supervision documents.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care