Healthclic Limited

Updated 13 September 2022

HealthClic Limited is an independent GP service and operates from its registered premises at Third Floor, Landsdowne House, 57 Berkeley Square, London, W1J 6ER. The service provides pre-bookable face-to-face private GP appointments for adults and children in their home or hotel. The service does not see any patients at its registered premises.

The provider offers four types of service:

• A home visit consultations and virtual consultation, where patients access the service on a pay-as-you-go basis. At the time of the inspection, they provided consultations for four to five patients a week.
• A concierge/annual membership retainer service, where the patient paid an annual membership fee to register with the service that provided patients with unlimited home visits and an personalised health assessment. At the time of the inspection, approximately 120 patients were registered.
• A case management service, where the GP will co-ordinate care and treatment for patients with complex needs.
• A whole genome sequencing service.

The service is predominantly used by patients in Central London and the London Boroughs of Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster, and the provider will see patients at any location in zones one to three.

The service is available Monday to Sunday 8am to 11pm. Patients requiring advice and support outside of those hours are advised to use the NHS 111 service or, in the case of an emergency, dial 999. This information was outlined on the service website.

The service is run by a chief executive and a clinical director, four GPs (three male and one female) and one administration staff. The service has a contract with a virtual assistance company to provide reception and administration support.

The medical 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.

How we inspected this service

Pre-inspection information was gathered and reviewed before the inspection. On the day of the inspection, we spoke with the medical director, and the managing director, and a GP. We also reviewed a wide range of documentary evidence.

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 13 September 2022

This service is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection September 2018, where the service was not rated but was meeting the standards of care.)

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 Healthclic Limited, Third Floor, Landsdowne House, 57 Berkeley Square, London, W1J 6ER, to enable the Commission to provide a quality rating for the services provided.

The provider offers four types of service. A concierge/annual membership retainer service, where the patient paid an annual membership fee to register with the service that provided patients with unlimited home visits and a personalised health assessment. A home visit consultations and virtual consultation, where patients access the service on a pay-as-you-go basis. A case management, where the GP will co-ordinate treatment for patients with complex cases and a whole genome sequencing service.

This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of some, but not all, of the services it provides. 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 which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.

The clinical 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.

The service sought feedback following each consultation. We saw feedback from twenty patients from the previous six months, which were positive and 18 had scored the service 10 out of a maximum of 10, and two stated they were nine. Positive comments made were about the professionalism of the staff, the quality of the service and the convivence and accessibility of the appointments.

Our key findings were:

• Systems and processes were in place to keep people safe. Staff had undertaken adult and child safeguarding training.
• Governance arrangements were in place. There were clear responsibilities, roles and systems of accountability to support good governance and management.
• Patients’ immediate and ongoing needs were fully assessed. Where appropriate this included their clinical needs and their mental and physical wellbeing.
• Prior to a face-to-face appointment, the patients received a telephone call to assess their needs both before and after the face-to-face appointments.
• The service obtained consent to care and treatment in line with legislation and guidance.
• The service had an infection control policy and procedures were in place to reduce the risk and spread of infection.
• The service shared relevant information with other services appropriately and in a timely way.
• The provider had system in place for staff who were lone working.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Consider whether the limited emergency medicines carried by the doctor will be sufficient for any unidentified or emerging illness.
• Put in place a fail safe administration system to ensure all high-risk monitoring is carried out.
• Review the systems in place that check patient consultation records contain all the necessary details to make sure they are fully effective.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services