Updated 16 September 2019
The Unicare Group – Derby is an organisation registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) based at 15 Handyside Street, Derby DE1 3BY. This service is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 for treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures and is registered as an Independent Healthcare Company. As a provider of Independent Healthcare, the practice is able to offer its surgical services to patients from a much wider area than the NHS practice list at the same site. The Unicare Group is managed from the Burton site and one of the directors of the company is also the GP partner at the practice.
The Unicare Group provides a private GP and minor surgery service which includes some HGV assessment in line with requirements of local and neighbouring local authority rules. The service also provides aesthetic procedures which include a range of laser hair and tattoo removal, injections of Botox and fillers which are not within CQC scope of registration. The staff team consists of one GP who is one of the four directors (one of whom is a silent partner) and seven receptionist and administrative staff. Several of these seven staff have undergone additional specific training to deliver the cosmetic treatments.
The website for The Unicare Group is:
The service also has a CQC registered practice in Burton. This was inspected by a separate CQC team within the same working week.
The service is open at Derby on a Monday from 9:30am to 1:30pm, Tuesday 2pm to 7pm, Wednesday 1pm to 7pm, Friday 10am to 4pm and Saturday 9am to 2pm.
How we inspected this service
We inspected the Unicare Group - Derby on 02 August 2019 as part of our inspection programme. Our inspection team was led by a Care Quality Commission (CQC) Lead Inspector. The team included a GP specialist adviser. Before visiting we reviewed a range of information we hold about the service and asked the service to send us a range of information. This included information about the complaints received in the last 12 months and the details of their staff members, their qualifications and training. The Unicare Group - Derby provided information on the day of the inspection which included audits and policies.
We sent patient comment cards two weeks prior to the inspection to gain feedback from service users. We spoke with staff from the service including the GP, one of the directors, and reception and administration staff.
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.