The Coach House

Updated 17 November 2022

The Coach House provides support to people in England to lose weight. This is done by providing consultations for advice and support including diet and exercise as well as prescribing and monitoring the effects of medicines where appropriate for weight loss. There are over 150 people registered with the service. Patients can access the service over the phone or via the website.

The service carries out the regulated activity at the above address. This is also where the inspection took place.

The clinic is open for appointments Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

How we inspected this service

Information was gathered from the provider information return prior to the inspection and while on site during the inspection. We also monitored feedback via the CQC online form.

The methods used to carry out this inspection were interviewing staff, reviewing feedback from people who use the service and review of documents.

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 17 November 2022

This service is rated as Choose a rating 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? – Requires improvement

We carried out an announced inspection at The Coach House. We carried out this inspection as part of our inspection programme following the registration of a new service.

The service is registered for treatment of disease, disorder and injury and primarily provides services to people seeking weight management including consultations and treatment.

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 Coach House provides a range of non-surgical cosmetic interventions, for example fat freezing which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.

The owner of the organisation 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.

We asked for feedback from patients via the CQC website. Four people provided a response. Responses were positive and patients highlighted the service provided good communication.

Our key findings were:

• The provider had safe systems and processes to manage patients.
• There was a culture of openness and honesty throughout the organisation.
• There was a lack of oversight of the service in terms of governance.

(Please see the specific details on action required at the end of this report).

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Maintain complete medical records for all patients
• Review and update policies and guidelines to reflect the services provided.
• Strengthen leaders’ oversight of the governance of the service.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

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