The London Endocrine Centre

Updated 4 August 2022

The London Endocrine Centre is an independent healthcare provider located at 68 Harley Street, London W1G 7HE. It occupies consulting rooms on the first floor of a period building, managed by another healthcare provider. The provider also has another location in central London. The location at Harley Street was the only site inspected and the other site was not visited as part of the inspection.

The provider was established by Dr Paul Jenkins in 2003. It offers consultation, medical and surgical treatment to adult patients with endocrine disease (hormonal imbalance) and chronic fatigue syndrome. It has recently started offering consultation for patients with long lasting symptoms of Covid-19.

The provider is comprised of a principal consultant endocrinologist and a consultant endocrinologist who works with The London Endocrine Centre on a self employed basis; both referring to an endocrine surgeon where required. Both doctors are supported by a small administrative team. The principal doctor provides 40 consultations a week to a population of approximately 500 patients.

Patients are able to book initial appointments over the phone and there is access to emails for comments and queries, which are checked on a daily basis.

Location usual consultation appointment times:

Monday to Thursday 9am to 1pm.

How we inspected this service

Evidence was gathered through a review of policy documents and records kept by the provider; staff interviews were conducted; patient satisfaction surveys and reviews were examined. The inspection was on-site and lasted one day, with reviews of submitted documentary evidence that took place following the 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 4 August 2022

This service is rated as Choose a rating 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 The London Endocrine Centre as part of our routine inspection program.

The service last had a compliance review 22 August 2012, when it was found to be meeting all of the required standards.

The service provides a private, specialist endocrine service to patients with endocrine diseases, for example hypothyroidism, polycystic ovary syndrome and diabetes. They also provided services for patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and long COVID-19 symptoms.

The lead clinician 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:

• Staff training was up to date and all staff had safeguarding training to the appropriate level.
• There was a small team where staff reported good levels of communication.
• Medicines and test results were reviewed and managed appropriately, and in a timely manner. Medicines were prescribed appropriately and consent was gained to share information with patient GPs. Patients were given holistic care in order to treat immediate and ongoing heath needs.
• Documentation and patient records were contemporaneous and of a high standard, and were kept securely in accordance with data protection laws.
• Patients reported high levels of satisfaction with their care and treatment, that they had enough time with the doctor during appointments and commented that they felt ‘listened to’.
• The provider evidenced a good understanding of patient needs and offered a variety of ways in which patients could access the service.
• There were adequate policies and systems in place to ensure good governance.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Implement identification checks for new patients.
• Implement a prescription record and monitoring system for paper prescriptions.
• Commence formal significant event and complaint logs.
• Display information to patients about how to make a complaint, requesting a chaperone, and interpretation services available.
• Continue second cycles of audits and maintain ongoing quality improvement processes.
• Formalise regular team meetings and take minutes for audit trail purposes.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care