Archived: Doctor Now

Updated 24 September 2018

Doctor Now provides services from: The Old Barn Mulberry Court Windsor End Beaconsfield Buckinghamshire HP9 2JJ. In addition the provider leases premises from other healthcare providers in Windsor and Slough where they provide some patient care.

Doctor Now is an independent GP provider. They provide services including:

• Care and treatment services including vaccinations, acute conditions, assessments of conditions, home visits among other services.

• Ongoing management of patient’s medical conditions including therapies for mental health conditions.

• Health checks, investigations or screening for patients.

• Prescribing of acute medicines for therapeutic reasons.

• Referrals to external private medical services or recommendations of referrals to patients’ NHS GPs.

Services were available from 8am to 8pm and out of hours services were available to patients who paid for this extended service.

The regulated activities registered for are:

• Diagnostic and screening procedures
• Transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

There were two full time GPs, a number of sessional GPs and five members of nursing staff working at the service. In addition management and support staff were employed to support the clinical team.

The inspection was undertaken by a lead inspector and a GP specialist adviser.

We requested information from the provider before the inspection. During the inspection we spoke with clinical, management and support staff, reviewed clinical and non-clinical documentation and reviewed patient feedback. We also looked at management of emergency medicines, equipment and prescription security.

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 24 September 2018

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 24 July 2018 to ask the service the following key questions; Are services safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led?

This service was previously inspected in January 2016 and we identified breaches of regulation. We found these concerns had been addressed since the last inspection.

Our findings were:

Are services safe?

We found that this service was providing safe care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services effective?

We found that this service was providing effective care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services caring?

We found that this service was providing caring services in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services responsive?

We found that this service was providing responsive care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services well-led?

We found that this service was providing well-led care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Start this section with the following sentence.

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. 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.

CQC inspected the service in January 2016 and asked the provider to make improvements regarding the safety and effectiveness of their care and to review leadership and governance processes. The provider sent us an action plan following the inspection, setting out what they were going to do to improve their services. We checked these areas as part of this comprehensive inspection and found they had been resolved.

The service provides private GP services to patients including consultation, treatment (which may include long term care) and vaccinations.

The lead partner 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 received feedback from 52 patients including 35 comment cards and 17 patients reporting directly to CQC. All the feedback we received was highly positive regarding the care and access to the service.

Our key findings were:

• Patients received timely care when required and were able to easily access appointments.
• There were systems in place to monitor patient care and treatment.
• Incidents and complaints were reported and investigated openly and thoroughly.
• The premises were clean, safe and well maintained.
• Staff provided a caring environment for patients to receive care in.
• Medicines were stored safely and repeat prescribing was monitored.
• Staff received training and development to ensure they were safe and capable to provide care.