19 September 2019
During a routine inspection
Parkside Hospital at Putney is a private hospital operated by Aspen Healthcare Limited. The service provides pre-assessment and post-operative care for general surgical and gender re-assignment patients. Most of the gender re-assignment patients were referred to the hospital under NHS funded arrangements.
The patients using the service were a mixture of privately and NHS funded patients. Between March 2018 and February 2019, 40 private patients attended for a first appointment compared to 155 NHS funded patients. There was 476 NHS and 611 non-NHS follow up appointments.
We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the announced inspection of the hospital on 19 September 2019.
To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so, we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.
Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.
Services we rate
Our rating of this service stayed the same. We rated it as Good overall.
We found the following areas of good practice:
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The service had enough staff with the right qualifications, skills, training and experience to keep people safe from avoidable harm and to provide the right care. Managers appraised staff’s work performance annually and checked to make sure staff had the right qualifications and professional registration for their roles.
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Staff understood how to protect patients from abuse and the service worked well with other agencies to do so.
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The environment was appropriate and met the needs of the range of people who accessed the service including refreshments for parents’ appointments. The service controlled infection risks effectively.
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Patients could access services and appointments in a way and a time that suited them. The service used technology innovatively to ensure patients had timely access to all the diagnostic tests before their scheduled appointment.
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The service provided care and treatment based on national guidance and could evidence its effectiveness. Managers monitored the effectiveness of care and treatment and used the findings to improve them. The service evaluated care provided to ensure they were of good quality through regular clinical audits.
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The service treated concerns and complaints seriously. The registered manager completed comprehensive complaints investigations and shared lessons learnt with all staff.
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The service improved its quality and safeguarded high standards of care by creating an environment for good clinical care.
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Staff were caring, compassionate, kind and engaged well with patients and their families.
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Managers promoted a positive culture that supported and valued staff. Staff reported their team worked well together and staff trusted and respected each other.
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The service collected, analysed, managed and used information to support all its activities, using secure electronic systems with security safeguards.
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The service effectively managed risks and could cope with both the expected and the unexpected.
Nigel Acheson
Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (South & London)