The Hill Medical Centre

Updated 15 August 2019

The Hill Medical Centre was established in 2011 to provide private general practitioner services.

The provider registered with the Care Quality Commission in 2013 to provide the regulated activities of: Diagnostic and Screening procedures and; Treatment of Disease, Disorder, Injury (TDDI). In addition to a private GP service, the principal GP offers an integrative medicine service. Integrative medicine is an approach to care putting the patient at the centre and addresses the full range of physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual and environmental influences affecting a person’s health. Within the building, there are 22 other practitioners who rent rooms and offer complementary medical services, not regulated by CQC, including: physiotherapy, psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, cranial osteopathy and an ultrasound and a fertility consultant.

The service is open:

• Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 10:30am-6.30pm.
• Wednesday 10.30am – 4.00pm.
• Friday 10.30am – 2.30pm.

GP consultations are available:

• Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 10:30am-6.30pm.
• Wednesday 10.30am – 4.00pm.
• Friday 10.30am – 2.30pm.

The service is predominantly accessed by patients from the local Jewish community. All services are provided from the ground floor of the building.

The cost of the service for patients is advertised on its website and detailed on patient consultation forms. The service employs one male doctor (who is on the GMC register), a practice manager and a business partner.

How we inspected this service

Our inspection team was led by a CQC lead inspector. The team included a specialist adviser.

During this inspection we:

• Spoke with a range of staff including a doctor, who is also the registered manager and the practice manager.
• Looked at the systems in place for the running of the service.
• Looked at rooms and equipment used in the delivery of the service.
• Viewed a sample of key policies and procedures.
• Explored how clinical decisions are made.
• Reviewed 20 CQC comment cards all of which included positive feedback from patients about their experience of the service.

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 15 August 2019

This service is rated as Choose a rating overall. (Previous inspection 10 January 2019 when the service was found to be meeting the relevant standards).

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 Hill Medical Centre on 18 July 2019 as part of our rating inspection programme for independent health services. CQC last inspected this service on 10 January 2019, at which time it was found to be compliant with the relevant standards, however, we identified one area where the provider could make improvements and should:

• Review protocols to ensure periodic water temperature monitoring is undertaken in accordance with the service’s recent Legionella risk assessment.

A copy of our previous inspection report can be found by going to https://www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-953184915 and selecting the Reports tab.

The Hill Medical Centre was established in 2011 and registered with the Care Quality Commission in 2013. The practice operates a private GP service for patients, providing consultations and private prescriptions.

The principal doctor 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.

As part of this inspection patients of the service were asked to give feedback to CQC about their experiences of using the service. We received responses about the service from 20 people. All comments we received were positive about the service with patients mentioning: staff were courteous professional and caring, the clinic was always clean when they visited, and all their questions were answered.

Our key findings were:

• Shortly after our last inspection in January 2019 the service provided us with evidence of an assessment and water sample test it had undertaken which indicated the Legionella bacterium was not present in its water system.
• Referrals and transfers to other services were undertaken in a timely way.
• The service kept written records of verbal interactions as well as written correspondence.
• We saw no evidence of discrimination when making care and treatment decisions.
• Feedback from patients was positive about the way staff treated people.
• Information about how to make a complaint or raise concerns was available.
• The service was transparent, collaborative and open with stakeholders about performance.

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