Well Travelled Clinics - Chester

Updated 7 June 2022

Well Travelled Clinics – Chester is a company of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. It operates from office premises based in Chester at 10 Watergate Row (North), Watergate Street, Chester, Cheshire, CH1 2LD.

Well Travelled Clinics - Chester provides a non-NHS, fee paying pre-travel risk assessment, advice, vaccination and a malaria prophylaxis service to the travelling public of the northwest of the UK and a number of UK based corporate clients. It provides non-NHS, fee paying pre and post travel occupational travel risk assessment for corporate clients. The service also provides NHS funded care for post-exposure rabies vaccination. The service provides occupational health services which includes services for private fee-paying patients. We did not review occupational health services as part of this inspection.

The provider has a further registered service based in Liverpool, Well Travelled Clinics – Liverpool. The staff team work at both registered services. Yellow fever vaccination is provided at two external sites, NHS Infectious Diseases units at the Royal Liverpool Hospital and Alder Hey Liverpool Children’s Hospital for adults and children with confirmed or suspected egg allergy.

The service is located in Chester city centre, close to all major transport links. The service sees 100 to 200 patients per month. The service has two doctors, five nurses, a clinical manager and registered manager. The service is supported by administrative staff. The service also contracts a part-time consultant pharmacist for specific advice and support in relation to medicines management and patient group directives.

The service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to provide the following Regulated Activities: Diagnostic and screening procedures and Treatment of disease, disorder or injury. Services are available to both adults and children.

The service is currently open Monday and Thursday from 9am – 4.30pm and alternate Saturday mornings between 9am and 1pm (alternating between the Chester and Liverpool clinic).

How we inspected this service

Before visiting we reviewed a range of information we hold about the service and asked the provider to send us information. This included the complaints they had received in the last 12 months, details of significant events and the details of their staff members. As part of the inspection we reviewed feedback gathered from staff, spoke to the registered manager and clinical manager and reviewed a range of documents. We reviewed patient feedback gathered 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 7 June 2022

This service is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection 23 November 2018)

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 Well Travelled Clinics – Chester as part of our inspection programme.

This service provides pre-travel advice, vaccination, a malaria prophylaxis service and an occupational health service.

This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of some, but not all, of the services it provides. There are some general exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of service and these are set out in Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. At Well Travelled Clinics – Chester services are provided to patients under arrangements made by their employer. These types of arrangements are exempt by law from CQC regulation. Therefore, at Well Travelled Clinics - Chester we were only able to inspect the services which are not arranged for patients by their employers.

The Managing Director 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:

• Systems were in place to protect people from avoidable harm and abuse. When mistakes occurred, lessons were learned.
• Patients received clear information about their proposed treatment which enabled them to make an informed decision. This included costs (where applicable), risks and benefits of treatment.
• Patients were offered appointments at a time convenient to them and treatment was offered in a timely manner.
• Patients’ needs were fully assessed, and care and treatment were tailored to individual needs.
• Clinicians assessed patients according to appropriate guidance, legislation and standards and delivered care and treatment in line with current evidence-based guidance.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
• There was an effective governance framework in place in order to assess, monitor and improve the quality of the services provided.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management and worked well together as a team.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Put in place a formal process to review prescribing practices.
• Include non-clinical staff in training on infection prevention and control.
• Make a record of monthly in-house checks of the emergency lighting.
• Hold signed copies of Patient Group Directives at this location.

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