Archived: Antrobus Medical Limited

Updated 4 May 2018

Background

Antrobus Medical Limited, an online service was inspected at the following address: Abney Hall Suite 11, Manchester Road, Cheadle, Cheshire, SK8 2PD.

Antrobus Medical Limited operates an online consultation and prescription service through the website www.webmedpharmacy.co.uk which specialises in treatment of conditions primarily concerning sexual health. A medical questionnaire is completed by each patient and a doctor can seek more information prior to prescribing by using a secure messaging system.

The service provided medicines to address sexual health needs as well as medicines to aid weight loss and medicines to promote hair growth.

The service is available for patients in the UK only. Patients can access the service by phone or e-mail from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. This is not an emergency service. Subscribers to the service pay for their medicines when making their on-line application.

Antrobus was registered with Care Quality Commission (CQC) on 11 August 2016 and have a registered manager in place. 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.

How we inspected this service

Our inspection team was led by a CQC Lead Inspector accompanied by a GP Specialist Advisor.

Before visiting, we reviewed a range of information we hold about the service and asked for additional information from the provider.

During our visits we:

• Spoke with a range of staff.
• Reviewed organisational documents.
• Examined patient records.

Updated 4 May 2018

We carried out an announced focused inspection at Antrobus Medical Limited on 9 January 2018 to follow up on breaches of regulations found during the previous inspection.

We previously inspected Antrobus Medical Limited on 11 May 2017. The full comprehensive report of this inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all services’ link for location name on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Antrobus Medical Limited operates an online consultation and prescription service, through the website www.webmedpharmacy.co.uk, which specialises in treatment of conditions primarily concerning sexual health. A medical questionnaire is completed by each patient and a doctor can seek more information prior to prescribing by using a secure messaging system.

Our findings in relation to the key questions were as follows:

Are services safe? – We found the service was providing a safe service in accordance with the relevant regulations. Specifically:

• A new system was in place where upon registering with the service, patient identity was verified; this was being undertaken for patients returning to the service and requiring a consultation, where they had previously not been required to prove their identity, as well as for new patients. On further consultations, a secondary check was conducted to confirm the identity of the patient if a prescription was issued.
• Conversations regarding patients were now completed through the internal messaging system and automatically recorded in the patients’ notes so they could be reviewed if necessary.

Are services effective? - We found the service was providing an effective service in accordance with the relevant regulations. Specifically:

• When a patient contacted the service, they were asked if the details of their consultation could be shared with their registered GP. If patients agreed, we were told that a letter was sent to their registered GP in line with GMC guidance. If they did not consent then a letter was dispatched with the medicines, which the patient could give to their GP.
• An automated solution had been initiated to ensure patients who had two separate records were flagged and the patient contacted to amalgamate the records into their preferred account.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice