Fast Medica Ltd

Updated 3 September 2019

Fast Medica Ltd is an independent clinic in the London Borough of Ealing and provides private primary medical services.

Fast Medica Ltd started in March 2018 and has two directors who run the service. The service uses a number of self-employed doctors. All doctors are on the General Medical Council (GMC) register and have indemnity insurance to cover their work. Medical consultations and diagnostic tests are provided by the clinic however no surgical procedures are carried out.

The service is run by two directors, supported by a practice manager and a head receptionist.

Services are provided from: Fast Medica Ltd, 2nd Floor, Hanwell Health Centre, 20 Church Road

London, W7 1DR. We visited this location as part of the inspection on 24 April 2019.

Online services can be accessed from the practice website: .

The service offers services for adults and children. Most of the patients seen at the service are from the Polish speaking community.

The service offers general practice services and gynaecology services including scans for babies. On average they offer 10 general practitioner consultations per month, 60 gynaecologist consultations per month and 75 scans per month (a combination of scans for babies, non-pregnant women and other scans).

In addition, the service offers consultations with Cardiologist, Dermatologist, Sexual Health Practitioner, Respiratory Physician, Allergist, Diabetologist, Endocrinologist, Paediatrician, Urologist, Cryotherapy and Psychiatrist. On average they all offer 90 consultations per month.

The service has core opening hours from 9am to 9pm Monday to Saturday and 9am to 3pm Sunday.

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 the services it provides.

How we inspected this service

Pre-inspection information was gathered and reviewed before the inspection. We spoke with the registered manager, a practice manager and three doctors. 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 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 3 September 2019

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Fast Medica Ltd to follow up on breaches of regulations.

We carried out an announced focused inspection on 24 April 2019. This was to follow-up on two warning notices the Care Quality Commission served following an announced comprehensive inspection on 19 December 2018 when the provider was not providing safe, effective and well-led care in accordance with the relevant regulations. The inspection on 19 December 2018 highlighted several areas where the service had not met the standards of regulations. We checked these areas as part of a focused inspection on 24 April 2019 and this comprehensive inspection on 7 August 2019 and found this had been resolved.

The previous inspection reports can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Fast Medica Ltd on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Fast Medica Ltd is an independent clinic in the London Borough of Ealing and provides private primary medical services. The service offers services for adults and children. Most of the patients seen at the service are from the Polish speaking community. Medical consultations and diagnostic tests are provided by the clinic; however, no surgical procedures are carried out.

One of the directors 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.

Twenty seven people provided feedback about the service, which was positive about the care and treatment offered by the service. They were satisfied with the standard of care received and thought the doctors were approachable, committed and caring. They said the staff were helpful and treated them with dignity and respect.

Our key findings were:

• The service had demonstrated improvements in all areas highlighted in the previous inspection in December 2018.
• The service had appointed a clinical lead to ensure the delivery of safe and effective care.
• The service had reviewed and improved their clinical governance systems.
• The service had implemented reliable systems for appropriate and safe handling of medicines and the ultrasound scans.
• The service was involved in quality improvement activity.
• The service had implemented systems to undertake quality monitoring of clinicians’ performance including the handling of ultrasound scans.
• Consultation notes and the scan results were documented in the English language, which included complete, legible and accurate information in an accessible way.
• The service had developed a clinical risk management template to consider how they would manage the risk when offering the baby scans when consent to share information with the woman’s NHS GP was not given.
• Service specific policies were reviewed and updated. However, they had not always assured themselves that they were operating as intended. For example, some patients had not received coordinated care, because the service had not followed their own policy to encourage patients to share the details of their consultations with their registered GP or regular physician when required to ensure safe and effective delivery of care. The service had not communicated effectively when patients declined, as they had not recorded in the patient’s records that they had tried to persuade them to permit this, in situations in which this would be important.
• The service had taken steps to improve recruitment processes.
• Appointments were available on a pre-bookable basis. The service provided only face to face consultations.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Information about services and how to complain was available.
• The service was aware of and complied with the requirements of the Duty of Candour.

The areas where the provider must make improvements as they are in breach of regulations are:

• Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.

(Please see the specific details on action required at the end of this report).

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Carry out calibration of medical equipment according to manufacturers’ instructions.
• Follow your own complaints policy and register with an appropriate organisation to ensure the complainant’s right to escalate the complaint if required.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care