The Wellfield Skin Clinic

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 at The Wellfield Skin Clinic in Windsor, Berkshire on 9 March 2023. The service was registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in July 2019. We carried out this first rated inspection as part of our regulatory functions. The inspection was undertaken to check whether the service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

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.

The Wellfield Skin Clinic provides a range of independent dermatology services, including non-surgical cosmetic interventions, for example anti-wrinkle injections and dermal fillers which are not within CQC scope of registration. We did not inspect, or report on, those services that are outside the scope of registration.

The Wellfield Skin Clinic is registered with the CQC to provide the following regulated activities:

• Diagnostic and screening procedures
• Surgical procedures
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

Therefore, we only inspected treatments relating to medical skin and vascular conditions which included treatments (surgical and non-surgical treatment) for a range of skin conditions.

The service was founded in 2013 by a GP Skin Surgeon who is also the medical director and CQC registered manager. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the CQC 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.

Our key findings were:

• The service had clear systems to keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse. The service used recognised screening processes to identify patients who could be at risk of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) (BDD is a mental disorder characterised by the obsessive idea that some aspect of the person's body or appearance is severely flawed and therefore warrants exceptional measures to hide or fix it on a daily basis).

• The service assessed needs and delivered care in line with relevant and current evidence-based guidance and standards. This included guidance from Primary Care Dermatology Society (PCDS), the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the British Association of Dermatologists (BAD).

• Staff recognised the importance of people’s dignity and respect. Staff displayed an understanding and non-judgmental attitude when talking to patients who were seeking to resolve skin conditions and concerns regarding their appearance.

• The service had complaint policy and procedures in place and learned lessons from individual concerns, complaints and feedback. All feedback was discussed during staff meetings and recorded on the learnings log.

• There was a focus upon continuous improvement and exploration of innovations in treatment and after care to achieve optimum safe outcomes for patients.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

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