Nuffield Health - Sheffield Fitness and Wellbeing Centre

Updated 21 October 2022

The registered provider is Nuffield Health which is a large corporate provider with 37 hospitals, 114 fitness and wellbeing clubs (15 of these have clinics) and over 200 workplace wellbeing services across the country.

This location has one GP and two Physiologists who work in the clinic. Management is provided by a general manager who is also the registered manager with CQC for the service. The team are supported by the registered provider who controls the governance and standards within its locations by providing policies, procedures and monitoring compliance with standards.

Nuffield Health – Sheffield Fitness and Wellbeing Centre is located at Napier Street, Sheffield, S11 8HA. The service was first registered with CQC in 2014 and was inspected in 2018 but not rated. This is the first rated inspection of the service. The service provides the regulated activities of diagnostic and screening and treatment of disease, disorder or injury. The clinic provides health assessments only to patients aged 18 years and over and does not prescribe medication or treat patients. Referrals are made for patients whose test results warrant further investigation or treatment. Activities outside the CQC scope of regulation include the gym, fitness programmes and the swimming pool.

The clinic opening times are:

Wednesday to Friday 8am to 4.30pm.

The service is run from premises which include a suite of consultation and treatment rooms, a small waiting room and a toilet on the ground floor.

How we inspected this service:

Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our inspections differently.

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.

This included:

• Requesting evidence including documents relating to the management of the service from the provider prior to the inspection
• Reviewing patient feedback received by the provider
• A short site visit

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 21 October 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? – Outstanding

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Nuffield Health – Sheffield Fitness and Wellbeing Centre on 1 September 2022 as part of our inspection programme. The inspection was carried out to check whether the service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008. The service registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in 2014 and was inspected in 2018 but not rated. This was the first rated inspection of the service.

The service provides a range of screening and health assessments relating to the promotion of physical and mental wellbeing of people. Patients are provided with a comprehensive report of the findings of the assessment and referrals are made to other services or support services if required. This service is available to both corporate and fee paying private patients aged 18 years or over.

Nuffield Health – Sheffield Fitness and Wellbeing Centre is registered with the CQC to provide the following regulated activities:

Diagnostic and screening procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 in respect of some, but not all, of the services it provides. For example, the gym, fitness programmes and pool do not fall within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.

The service had a 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 did not speak to any patients during the inspection but we reviewed feedback received by the provider from patients following their consultations. All were positive about the service. Where feedback had been received, changes and improvements had been made.

Our key findings were:

• The provider had systems and processes for monitoring and managing risks and safety.
• Best practice guidance was followed when referring or signposting patients for further care or support.
• Staff were clear on their roles and responsibilities and had received appropriate training relevant to their role.
• We saw patient and staff feedback was acted on.
• There was a clear strategy and vision for the service. The leadership and governance arrangements promoted good quality care and whilst the provider's strategies and supporting objectives and plans were innovative, they remained achievable resulting in improved patient outcomes.

We saw the following outstanding practice:

• The provider had implemented a number of charitable flagship programmes to widen access for patients and ease the burden on the NHS. This included offering free 12 week programmes such as the COVID-19 rehabilitation programme to support patients physically and emotionally and the joint pain programme to support patients who were awaiting hip and knee replacements to self manage chronic pain. The provider had also worked in partnership with the Sheffield University on a pilot research project to evaluate the effectiveness of long term supported exercise intervention for men with advanced prostate cancer who had undergone treatment.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Continue with the plan to carry out second cycles of clinical audits to ensure actions are driving improvement.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

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