London Professional Aesthetics

Updated 8 September 2023

London Professional Aesthetics (the service) is a private clinic which carries out aesthetic treatments and medical procedures for people over the age of eighteen. The service is provided by London Medical Health Limited. It is registered by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to provide the regulated activities Treatment of disease, disorder or injury, and Diagnostic and screening procedures.

The service provides a broad range of aesthetic treatments including thread lifts, diagnosis and treatment of skin conditions, treatment for excessive sweating, phlebotomy and weight management. Other treatments, non-surgical cosmetic interventions, such as dermal fillers, lip fillers and Botox injections (for cosmetic purposes only), are exempted from CQC regulation.

The service operates at 193 Whitecross Street, London EC1Y 8QP. The clinic is on the ground floor and has two treatment rooms. Services are available to any fee-paying patient. The clinic is open from 8.00 am to 8.00 pm Monday to Friday; and on Saturday between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm. Appointments are pre-bookable; there is no walk-in service.

The service director and registered manager is a registered advanced nurse practitioner, who conducts thread lifts at the service. Occasional use is made of a locum nurse to cover absence. Administrative support is provided by a service manager and a receptionist.

How we inspected this service

We carried out a site visit to the service location and met with the provider’s service manager. We reviewed evidence submitted by the provider.

Updated 8 September 2023

We carried out an announced focused inspection of London Professional Aesthetics (the service) on 30 August 2023, to follow up on breaches of regulations identified at our inspection in May 2022, when we rated the service as Requires improvement overall.

This inspection focused on issues relating to the key questions of Safe and Well-led.

This service is now rated as Good overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services well-led? – Good

Are services effective? – previously rated Good

Are services caring? – previously rated Good

Are services responsive? – previously rated Good

At our previous inspection, we identified issues relating to the key questions Safe and Well-led:

• There was evidence that some risks were not assessed and well-managed; the service did not have an effective system of premises checks.
• Procedures for managing medical emergencies including access to emergency medicines and equipment were not effective. There was no defibrillator on site.
• The provider did not have a defined set of mandatory training that staff needed to complete to carry out their role effectively.
• There was limited evidence of systems to support good governance and management.

These constituted breaches of Regulations 12 (1) and 17 (1) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, and we served notices on the provider requiring it to take action to comply with the regulations. The provider sent us a plan of the actions it intended to take, and we carried out this inspection to check on what had been implemented.

The service is a private skin clinic operated by London Medical Health Limited (the provider). The clinical director of the service 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 is registered by the Care Quality Commission under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to provide the regulated activities Treatment of disease, disorder or injury and Diagnostic and Screening procedures. Some of the treatments provided are exempted from CQC regulation, as set out in Schedule 2 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. These include a range of non-surgical cosmetic interventions, for example dermal fillers, lip fillers and Botox injections (for cosmetic purposes only). Therefore, we did not inspect these elements of the service.

Our key findings were:

• The provider had revised or introduced systems to appropriately manage risks, such as fire safety issues, infection control and prevention, and emergency procedures.
• Systems were in place to ensure that mandatory training requirements were defined, and training, including updates, was provided to all staff.
• Systems had been put in place for information sharing with staff, clinical supervision and service monitoring.

We found the provider had taken appropriate action to comply with the requirements of Regulations 12 (1) and 17(1) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. We have revised the ratings for the key questions Safe and Well-led accordingly.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Health Care