Sk:n - Birmingham Harborne Road

Updated 12 August 2022

The provider of the clinic is Lasercare Clinics (Harrogate) Limited.

The clinic’s address is 32 Harborne Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, West Midlands, B15 3AA.

The clinic has car parking and has good public transport links.

More information about the clinic can be found on their website https://www.sknclinics.co.uk/clinics/the-midlands/birmingham-harborne-road

The clinic provides services to adults (over 18 year old) only. The services offered that fall under regulation include mole removal, medical acne treatment and hyperhidrosis (excess sweating).

The clinic is open Monday to Friday 10am to 8pm, on Saturday 9am to 6pm and on Sunday 10am to 5pm.

Doctors work at the clinic under practising privileges (permission granted through legislation to work in an independent hospital clinic).

There are four doctors, three nurses, a team of aestheticians, and non-clinical staff. The clinic has a manager and deputy clinic manager.

The provider has centralised governance and HR teams that support the clinic with these functions.

The provider’s call centre is open 9am to 8pm Monday to Friday, and from 8am to 5.30pm on Saturdays. Patients can contact the call centre to book appointments and make general enquiries.

Facilities on the ground and first floor include the reception and waiting area, three treatment rooms including two minor surgery rooms and a toilet.

How we inspected this service

We reviewed information from the provider before the inspection. During the site visit we interviewed staff, made observations and reviewed clinical records and 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 12 August 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 inspection of Sk:n - Birmingham Harborne Road on 13 July 2022 under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. This inspection was planned to check whether the service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008. This was the first rated inspection of the service. The service was previously inspected in January 2014 when it was not rated but was found to be meeting all regulations that were inspected at the time.

Sk:n - Birmingham Harborne Road is registered under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to provide the following regulated activities:

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

This clinic provides doctor and nurse-led dermatology services, offering a mix of regulated skin treatments and minor surgical procedures, as well as other non-regulated aesthetic treatments.

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 general 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.

Sk:n - Birmingham Harborne Road provides a wide range of non-surgical aesthetic interventions, for example, cosmetic Botox injections and laser har removal which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.

At the time of the inspection, the service did not have a registered manager. However, the provider had submitted an application to us, which was being processed by us. 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.

Our key findings were:

• The provider had implemented appropriate systems to keep patients and staff safe.
• There were systems to identify, monitor and manage risks.
• Staff had received mandatory training.
• The provider carried out appropriate recruitment checks.
• Arrangements for chaperoning were effectively managed.
• There were appropriate arrangements to manage medical emergencies and the clinic had suitable emergency medicines and equipment in place.
• There were effective systems and processes to manage infection, prevention and control.
• There was evidence of clinical and non-clinical audits.
• Patient feedback we viewed was positive about the overall service.
• The way the service was led and managed, promoted the delivery of a high quality service.

While we did not find any breaches in regulation, the areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Improve their audit program to include audits of clinician’s prescribing and referral decisions.
• Improve their process to confirm that patients are aged 18 or over.
• Improve their process for writing back to GPs when a referral is needed for further investigation.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

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