The Health Suite Limited

Updated 14 June 2022

The Health Suite Limited are located at 624 Uppingham Road, Leicester. LE7 9QB and is registered with the CQC to provide the regulated activities of diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning ,surgical procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury. The service was first registered with the CQC in 2020 and this is the first inspection of the service.

The Health Suite is an independent organisation which offers consultations, treatment and advice to both private patients and some services to NHS patients under a contract with the clinical commissioning group. For example, adult male circumcision, ultrasound guided pain injections, breast pain and 2 week wait under 35 years breast cancer pathway. (A 'Two Week Wait' referral is a request from your General Practitioner (GP) to ask the hospital for an urgent appointment for you, because you have symptoms that might indicate that you have cancer).

The service holds a list of registered patients who are either referred to the service or contact the provider directly to register as a private patient. The treatments provided by this service that fall into the scope of regulation includes private GP appointments, blood tests, electrocardiogram (ECG), health checks and family planning.

There are three directors who are also clinicians, one health care assistant who are supported by a team of receptionists and administrators.

Some of the patients receiving care at this service are patients of visiting clinicians who use the providers facilities under practising privileges without being directly employed by them. The service also provides a range of other services which are not regulated.

The location is a detached single storey building with disabled access, providing seven consulting rooms, one group meeting room, separate reception and waiting area, accessible toilets as well as staff kitchen and break room. Minor Surgery is also provided to patients.

The service is open from 8am to 8pm Monday to Thursday, 8.30am to 6pm on Friday and 8.30am to 1pm on Saturdays.

Consultations are by prior arrangement via telephone or email.

The service has a team of two GPs with specialisms, a consultant osteopath, one health care assistant, a reception lead and four reception administrators.

How we inspected this service

This inspection was carried out both remotely and by visiting the providers location.

This included:

• Visiting the providers location.
• Reviewing information provided to us before our site visit.
• Reviewing patient feedback.

The provider is not required to offer an out-of-hours service. Patients who need urgent medical assistance out of the service opening hours are requested to seek assistance from alternative services such as their own GP, the NHS 111 telephone service or accident and emergency.

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 14 June 2022

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 at The Health Suite Limited on 10 May 2022. This is the first time this service has been inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) following its registration as a new service in February 2020.

A director and GP at the location is the 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 provider protected patients from abuse and avoidable harm. They had systems and processes for monitoring and managing risk.
• There was a strong focus on providing care, treatment and support to achieve good outcomes for patients based on the best available evidence.
• The service worked within evidence-based practice, whilst providing individualised care.
• There was an established programme of quality improvement and clinical audit to demonstrate the efficacy of patient outcomes. There were proactive communication channels with the patients’ registered NHS GPs to ensure continuity of care.
• The provider gave patients follow up options for treatment or tests both on a private basis or by signposting to appropriate follow up via the NHS, further to an initial private consultation.
• We found that the service was caring and compassionate towards patients and we observed many positive comments received from those who had used the service.
• There was a strong, visible person-centred culture. The leadership team were motivated, passionate and inspired to offer care that was kind, accessible and respectful.
• Patients could access services in a way that promoted flexibility, choice and continuity of care
• Leadership and culture were used to drive and improve the delivery of high-quality person-centred care. Leaders worked closely with staff and others to make sure they prioritised compassionate and inclusive leadership. Staff said they worked well as a team, felt well supported and they had a common focus on improving the quality and sustainability of care and people’s experiences. Staff told us the provider was dedicated to providing an exceptional service for patients. The service had a strong focus on the needs of patients.
• The service had effective governance and assurance processes.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Develop the training matrix so that training records of staff training both employed and those with practising privileges are received and documented as completed and staff immunisations are all recorded.
• Demonstrate that actions from risk assessments and infection control audits are documented when completed.
• Provide leaflets are available in different languages.

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