Nuffield Health Birmingham Central Fitness and Wellbeing Centre

Updated 22 May 2019

Nuffield Health Birmingham Central Fitness and Wellbeing Centre provide health assessments to adults that include a range of testing and screening processes carried out by a physiologist and a doctor. Following the assessment and screening process patients undergo a consultation with a doctor to discuss the findings of the results and any recommended lifestyle changes or treatment planning. Patients can also access physiotherapy at the clinic.

The service is delivered from the clinic based at Nuffield Health Birmingham Central Fitness and Wellbeing Centre, Broadway Plaza, 220 Ladywood Middleway, Birmingham, B16 8LP. We inspected this location on 25 April 2019. Our inspection team was led by a CQC lead inspector. The team included a GP specialist advisor and a CQC national clinical advisor with a nursing background.

The service is registered to provide the regulated activities of Diagnostic and screening procedures and the Treatment of disease, disorder or injury from this location. None of the regulated services provided by the service are available to people under the age of 18.

Health assessments and physiotherapy are delivered in a purpose built clinic located in the health and wellbeing centre. The clinic is open between 8am and 5pm during weekdays for Health Assessments. There are three doctors, two physiology staff and two physiotherapists who work at the centre. Patients can choose to see a female or male staff member when booking in for health assessments and physiotherapy. In addition, patients can choose to be seen at one of the other nearby or wider health and wellbeing centres in the UK.

Health assessments are categorised and promoted as:

• A lifestyle health assessment with a Physiologist, for patients wanting to reduce health risks.
• A female assessment with a Doctor, for all aspects of female health.
• A 360 health assessment with a Physiologist and a Doctor which includes a review of diabetes and heart health risks.
• A 360+ health assessment with a Physiologist and a Doctor which focussed on cardiovascular health.

Personalised Assessments for Tailored Health (PATH) are also available, these are tailored to suit the patients individual needs. At the time of our inspection, these assessments were available to patients employed by a service that had signed up to this package as part of their employee health and wellbeing scheme.

In addition, patients could access cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) at the service for support with emotional and mental wellbeing.

Before our inspection we reviewed a range of information about the service, this included patient feedback from the public domain, information from the providers website and the providers CQC information return. During our visit we:

• Looked at the systems in place for the running of the service
• Explored how clinical decisions were made
• Viewed a sample of key policies and procedures
• Spoke with a range of staff

• Looked at a random selection of anonymised patient reports
• Made observations of the environment and infection control measures
• Reviewed patient feedback including CQC comment cards

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 22 May 2019

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 on Nuffield Health Birmingham Central Fitness and Wellbeing Centre as part of our inspection programme.

Nuffield Health Birmingham Central Fitness and Wellbeing Centre provide health assessments to adults that include a range of testing and screening processes carried out by a physiologist and a doctor. Following the assessment and screening process patients undergo a consultation with a doctor to discuss the findings of the results and any recommended lifestyle changes or treatment planning. Patients can also access physiotherapy at the clinic.

The Clinic 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.

Patient feedback and completed CQC comment cards were very positive about the service. Patients noted that they were treated with kindness and respect. Staff were described as knowledgeable, friendly and caring.

Our key findings were:

• The service had systems to keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse. A duty doctor was available each day and they were responsible for managing safeguarding concerns.

• There were safe and effective recruitment procedures in place to ensure staff were suitable for their role. There was evidence of effective processes to develop staff which was recognised as being integral to ensuring the delivery of a high quality service.

• There were effective systems in place to manage infection prevention and control.

• Services were organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs, they focused on preventative health and patients were supported to live healthier lives. Staff treated patients with kindness, respect and compassion.

• The service had a culture of high-quality sustainable care. The service focused and invested in the needs of their patients and also their staff. In turn, patient satisfaction was positive and staff felt respected, supported and valued.

• There was evidence in place to support that the service carried out assessments and treatment in line with relevant and current evidence based guidance and standards.

• There were adequate arrangements in place for laboratory tests as well as for transporting samples for any offsite testing. During our inspection we noted that the service operated stringent internal and external quality control systems to support this service.

• There was evidence of continuous quality improvement across various areas such as internal key performance indicator monitoring, adherence to regulatory and best practice standards and quality audits.

• The development and ongoing education of staff was recognised as being integral to ensuring the delivery of a high quality service. The role of physiologist had been developed by Nuffield Health. They had worked with the Royal Society of Public Health to produce a Code of Practice for the role. The organisation funded training for all Physiologists recruited by the service, this enabled them to work towards a level seven advanced professional diploma in Health and Wellbeing Physiology which was also funded by the service.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Consider supporting doctors who interpret diagnostic spirometry to achieve the standard of practice set out by the Association for Respiratory Technology and Physiology (ARTP) and enable them to enrol on the National Register, as best practice.

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