Archived: The Private Clinic - Fitzroy Square

The Private Clinic - Fitzroy Square is operated by The Private Clinic of Harley Street Limited.

The hospital provides cosmetic surgery for privately funded patients over the age of 18 years of age. Facilities within the hospital include two operating theatres and three overnight patient beds.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the announced part of the inspection on 14 May 2019. We gave the provider 48 hours’ notice to ensure that the hospital would be open on the day of our inspection.

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 rate

This was the first time we have inspected this service. We rated it as Good overall.

We rated the service 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. Staff assessed risks to patients, acted on them and kept good records of care and treatment. They managed medicines well. Staff collected safety information and used it to improve the service. The service generally controlled infection risk well. Staff knew how to report patient safety incidents and could tell us about 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 to carry out their role. Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients and supported them to make decisions about their care. Key services were available seven 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 care. They provided emotional support to patients and those close to them.
• The service planned care to meet individual patient needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback. People could access the service when they needed it.
• 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 to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to improving services.

However:

• Some of the service’s systems and processes for identifying, reporting and reviewing patient safety incidents and risks to the service, were relatively new and not yet fully embedded into practice.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it should make some improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. Details are at the end of the report.

Nigel Acheson

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals