Nuffield Health Birmingham Rubery Fitness and Wellbeing Centre

This service is rated as Good overall.

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 on Nuffield Health Birmingham Fitness and Wellbeing Centre as part of our inspection programme.

Nuffield Health Birmingham Fitness and Wellbeing Centre provide health assessments to adults that include a range of testing and screening processes carried out by a physiologist and a doctor. Following the assessment and screening process patients undergo a consultation with a doctor to discuss the findings of the results and any recommended lifestyle changes or treatment planning. Patients can also access physiotherapy at the clinic.

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.

Patient feedback and completed CQC comment cards were very positive about the service. Staff were described as helpful and patients noted that they were treated with kindness and respect.

Our key findings were:

• The service had systems to keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse. A duty doctor was available each day and they were responsible for managing safeguarding concerns.

• There were safe and effective recruitment procedures in place to ensure staff were suitable for their role. There was evidence of effective processes to develop staff which was recognised as being integral to ensuring the delivery of a high quality service.

• There were effective systems in place to manage infection prevention and control.

• Services were organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs, they focused on preventative health and patients were supported to live healthier lives. Staff treated patients with kindness, respect and compassion.

• The development and ongoing education of staff was recognised as being integral to ensuring the delivery of a high quality service.

• There was evidence in place to support that the service carried out assessments and treatment in line with relevant and current evidence based guidance and standards.

• There were adequate arrangements in place for laboratory tests as well as for transporting samples for any offsite testing. During our inspection we noted that the service operated stringent internal and external quality control systems to support this service.

• There was evidence of continuous quality improvement across various areas such as internal key performance indicator monitoring, adherence to regulatory and best practice standards and quality audits.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Consider supporting doctors who interpret diagnostic spirometry to achieve the standard of practice set out by the Association for Respiratory Technology and Physiology (ARTP) and enable them to enrol on the National Register, as best practice.

• Consider further adding to existing mandatory training modules to support staff in being able to identify and manage patients with severe infections, such as for sepsis.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGPChief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care