Moorfields Private Eye Centre

Updated 17 November 2023

Moorfields Private Eye Centre is an independent clinic located in central London.

Services are provided from: 50/52 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 8TL. We visited this location as part of the inspection on 12 September 2023.

The service offers ophthalmology (the diagnosis and treatment of eye disorders) related healthcare services to fee-paying patients. The service was open to adults only. The service recently underwent a transition from a mixed speciality private clinic which provided treatments to patients for ophthalmology and dermatology conditions to only providing private patient services for ophthalmology.

The service employs a number of self-employed doctors who have practicing privileges to work at the service. All doctors are on the General Medical Council (GMC) register and have indemnity insurance to cover their work.

The team consists of a general manager, department managers, pharmacists, ophthalmic nurses, ophthalmic technicians, healthcare assistants and a team of administrative staff and patient liaison officers.

The service is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide the regulated activities of diagnostic and screening procedures, treatment of disease, disorder and injury and surgical procedures and transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely.

The service has core opening hours from 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday.

How we inspected this service

Pre-inspection information was gathered and reviewed before the inspection. we spoke with a range of clinical and non-clinical staff prior to the inspection via video conferencing and during the inspection site visit. We reviewed records related to patient assessments and the provision of care and treatment. We also reviewed documentation related to the management of the service and reviewed patient feedback collected by 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 17 November 2023

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 at Moorfields Private Eye Centre to follow up on breaches of regulations from our inspection in February 2022.

CQC inspected the service in February 2022 and asked the provider to make improvements regarding effective governance and auditing processes to enable the service to assess, monitor and mitigate the risks relating to the health, safety and welfare of service users and others who may be at risk. We checked these areas as part of this comprehensive inspection and found the provider made the required improvements.

The service offered ophthalmology (the diagnosis and treatment of eye disorders) related healthcare services to fee-paying patients. The service was open to adults only. The service had recently undergone a transition from a mixed speciality private clinic which provided treatments to patients for dermatology conditions to only providing private patient services for ophthalmology.

The service manager 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.

Our key findings were:

• The service had clear systems and processes to keep people safe. This includes systems in respect of recruitment, infection prevention and control and medicine management.
• Information needed to deliver safe care and treatment was available and accessible to relevant staff in a timely manner.
• The service had reliable systems for the appropriate and safe handling of medicines.
• The service was able to provide evidence consultations of all doctors were undertaken in line with relevant national UK guidelines.
• Staff members had the skills, knowledge and experience to carry out their roles.
• Patients were treated with dignity and respect. Feedback from patient reviews reported staff were kind and caring and involved them as much as they wanted to be in the treatment of their care.
• The service was tailored to meet the needs of individual patients.
• The leadership, governance and culture at the service was used to drive and improve the personalised patient focused care the service provides.
• The service involved patients to support high-quality sustainable services.
• We saw evidence of systems and processes for learning, continuous improvement and innovation.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

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