Sk:n - Cambridge Brookland Avenue

Updated 4 February 2022

Sk:n – Cambridge is operated by Lasercare Clinics (Harrogate) Limited, 34 Harborne Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 3AA and provides services from 7 Brooklands Avenue, Cambridge, CB2 8BB. The provider has over 50 clinics registered with the CQC in England.

A link to the clinic’s website is below:

www.sknclinics.co.uk/clinics/the-midlands/cambridge-brooklands-avenue

This clinic first registered with the CQC in February 2018 and is registered to treat patients aged 18 and over. The services offered include those that fall under registration, such as mole removal, medical acne treatment, and anti-ageing injectables. Other procedures, that do not fall under scope of registration include non-surgical wart and verruca removal, lip fillers, skin peels, dermal fillers and laser hair removal.

The clinic is located in a residential area close to the railway station and a retail park with a number of retail and leisure outlets. There is limited pay and display parking outside the location, and patient parking at the front and rear. It is open six days a week; Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday between 12pm and 8pm, Thursday and Friday between 10am and 6pm and Saturday between 9am and 5pm. The provider’s call centre operates seven days a week.

Facilities on the ground floor include the reception area, one treatment room (which is used for regulated activities), and a patient toilet.

On the first floor are two treatment rooms (not used for regulated activity) and an admin room; on the second floor a further treatment room (not used for regulated activity), an admin office, kitchen area and staff toilet.

How we inspected this service

Before the inspection, we asked to provider to send us some information, which was reviewed prior to the inspection day. We also reviewed information held by CQC on our internal systems.

During the inspection we spoke with all the staff present including the registered manager, medical director, a newly appointed clincal manager designate (who will shortly be taking over as the registered manager), reception and other clinical staff. We made observations of the facilities and service provision and reviewed documents, records and information held 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 4 February 2022

This service is rated as Good overall.

This service was registered by the CQC on 9 February 2018 and this is the first time since then that it has been inspected and rated.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Sk:n – Cambridge on 9 December 2021 as part of our inspection programme.

Sk:n - Cambridge is registered under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to provide the following regulated activities:

• Diagnostic and screening procedures.
• Surgical Procedures.
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

This service provides independent dermatology services, offering a mix of regulated skin treatments as well as other non-regulated aesthetic treatments. There are some exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of regulated activities and services and these are set out in Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. We only inspected and reported on the services which are within the scope of registration with the CQC.

The clinic manager 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.

Due to the current pandemic we were unable to obtain comments from patients via our normal process of asking the provider to place comment cards within the service location. However, we saw from internal surveys and reviews on social media that patients were consistently positive about the service, describing staff as professional, kind, polite, non-judgemental and caring. Patients also commented on the clinic being well maintained and clean. We did not speak with patients on the day, due to social restriction measures being in force.

Our key findings were:

• The service had safety systems and processes in place to keep people safe. There were systems to identify, monitor and manage risks and to learn from incidents.
• There were regular reviews of the effectiveness of treatments, services and procedures to ensure care and treatment was delivered in line with evidence-based guidelines.
• Staff treated patients with compassion, respect and kindness and involved them in decisions about their care.
• There was a clear strategy and vision for the service. The leadership and governance arrangements promoted good quality care.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care