Archived: Emotions Clinic

Updated 31 December 2018

The Emotions Clinic is a stand-alone service, for private fee-paying patients, run by Nature Consultancy Limited.

The service is run by Dr Kishore Chandiramani, a private consultant psychiatrist with over 30 years’ experience. The clinical team includes the registered manager (the consultant psychiatrist) a locum psychiatrist, a nurse and four part time administrative staff. The service is provided for adults and children over the age of 14 years old. The overall objective is to offer psychiatric and psychological treatment (psychotherapy) to people with mental health problems in Stoke on Trent and neighbouring areas. Therapies are delivered either on a one to one basis or in group sessions. Drug treatments, counselling and therapy are provided for clinical conditions such as anxiety, stress and depressive disorders and psychosis.

The consultant psychiatrist makes an initial assessment of all patients and a treatment plan is developed in consultation with the patient. One of the primary treatments offered is an innovative integrated six session stress management programme. All the treatments provided by the clinic are evidence based and can include medication. The practice also takes on medico legal work for people who require assessments for personal injury claims, mental capacity, occupational fitness and employment and mental health hearing tribunals.

The service address is:

Nature Consultancy Limited, 1 Lawson Terrace, Knutton Newcastle Under Lyme, ST5 6DS

The core opening hours for the service are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 9am-5pm and 9am-7pm on Wednesday. The assessment clinics run on Tuesdays and on Wednesday evenings. Patients can also access support from the consultant psychiatrist by telephone outside of appointment times. Follow up appointments can also be made by video call.

The staff team at the clinic consists of the registered manager who is also a consultant psychiatrist, a registered mental health nurse with over 15 years’ experience of working in mental health and a locum consultant psychiatrist familiar to the service. The team is supported by four part time medical secretaries and currently employs two part time consultants for Human Resource advice and CQC inspection compliance.

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Emotions clinic service on 13 November 2018. Our inspection team comprised two CQC mental health inspectors

Before visiting, we reviewed a range of information we hold about the service. Prior to the inspection we reviewed any notifications received, and the information provided from pre-inspection information request.

During our visit we:

• Spoke with all staff at the service
• Reviewed five service user feedback forms
• Looked at the equipment and rooms used by the service.
• Reviewed twelve case records, one personnel file, clinical policies, minutes of meetings and other policies.

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 31 December 2018

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 13 November 2018 to ask the service the following key questions; Are services safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led?

Our findings were:

Are services safe?

We found that this service was providing safe care in accordance with the relevant regulations

Are services effective?

We found that this service was providing effective care.

Are services caring?

We found that this service was providing caring services in accordance with the relevant regulations

Are services responsive?

We found that this service was providing responsive care in accordance with the relevant regulations

Are services well-led?

We found that this service was providing well-led care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the practice service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

The service provides private psychiatric and psychological treatments for mental health problems and specialises in the assessment and treatment of stress, anxiety and depression.

Dr Kishore Chandiramani 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 (CQC) under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Our key findings were:

• Care was highly person centred. Care records evidenced a collaborative approach to setting treatment goals. Staff listened to patients and adjusted treatment to suit a patient's personal experiences and needs.
• Patients were able to give feedback to the service. The registered manager valued this information and included it in planning future service development.
• The service was responsive to patient need. Patients were offered appointments out of hours and at weekends to improve access.
• Regular clinical reflection supported the operation of the service and gave assurance that the quality of care was monitored effectively.
• All staff received supervision and support in developing their knowledge and skills and there was a strong emphasis on continued professional development.
• The manager encouraged staff feedback and participation in making decisions about the service. All staff felt their voice was listened to.
• The provider did not always completely document or regularly review risk assessments for all patients. This meant that patient records did not have up to date information on patient risk and was not available to other professionals.

There were areas where the provider could make improvements and should:

• Always record their risk assessments, fully demonstrating the identification, management and mitigation of risk.
• Regularly update risk assessments when a patient’s situation changes.
• Review and update its clinical and human resource (HR) policies and procedures
• Review and develop its quality improvement programme
• Complete a full environmental risk assessment to include a ligature risk assessment

Dr Paul Lelliott

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (Hospitals- Mental Health)