Archived: The City Walk-in Clinic

Updated 25 July 2019

The City Walk-in Clinic is a provider of private general practitioner services. The service is located in Renown House, 33-34 Bury Street, London, EC3A 5AR. The provider offers the following services: doctor and nurse appointments, specialist referrals, radiology referrals, phlebotomy and medical testing, sexual health testing, pre-employment and visa screening, general health screening and occupational and adult vaccinations.

In addition to The City Walk-in Clinic, the provider has a separate location at 13 Queen Anne Street, London, W1G 9JH and known as Harley Walk-in Clinic. The Harley Walk-in Clinic is registered with CQC as a separate location so was not inspected as part of this inspection. Further information CQC holds about the Harley Walk-in Clinic can be found on the CQC website at: https://www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-5418274884.

The service is open Monday to Friday from 7.30am to 6.30pm.

The clinical team at the service consists of two female full-time GPs, a female part-time GP and practice nurse.

The service is registered with CQC to undertake the following regulated activities: Treatment of Disease, Disorder or Injury and Diagnostic and Screening Services. Patients could book appointments on the same day or in advance. The service did not manage patients with long term conditions or immunisations for travel or childhood immunisations.

How we inspected this service

Our inspection team was led by a CQC lead inspector. The team included a GP specialist adviser and a practice nurse.

During this inspection we:

• Spoke with a range of staff including a doctor, a nurse, the registered manager and the practice manager.
• Looked at the systems in place for the running of the service.
• Looked at rooms and equipment used in the delivery of the service.
• Viewed a sample of key policies and procedures.
• Explored how clinical decisions are made.
• Reviewed thirty-one CQC comment cards which included feedback from patients about their experience of 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 25 July 2019

This service is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection December 2018 – when it was found to be meeting the relevant standards)

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 The City Walk-in Clinic on 13 June as part of our rating inspection programme for independent health services. A copy of our previous inspection report can be found by going to https://www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-5418275062 and selecting the Reports tab.

The City Walk-in Clinic is a private healthcare service providing general practitioner appointments and services.

The managing director 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.

As part of this inspection patients of the service were asked to give feedback to CQC about their experiences of using the service. We received responses about the service from thirty-one people. All comments we received were positive about the service with patients mentioning: staff were courteous professional and caring, the clinic was always clean when they visited and all their questions were answered.

Our key findings were:

• Clinicians made appropriate and timely referrals in line with protocols and up to date evidence-based guidance.
• We saw no evidence of discrimination when making care and treatment decisions.
• Interpretation services were available for patients who did not have English as a first language, and between them staff spoke a wide range of languages.
• The provider understood the needs of their patients and improved services in response to those needs.
• Leaders were knowledgeable about issues and priorities relating to the quality and future of services.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review and consider how to implement a system to retain medical records in line with guidance in the event the service ceases trading.
• Consider making a hearing loop available for the benefit of patients with impaired hearing.
• Consider preparing a business plan to assist in forming and reviewing its future plans for development of the service.