Tarrant Street Clinic

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Tarrant Street Clinic on 15 November 2019 as part of our inspection programme, under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. This inspection was planned to check whether the service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008. This was the provider’s first rated inspection. The practice was previously inspected in October 2018 when the practice was not rated but was found to be meeting all regulations.

Tarrant Street Clinic is an independent provider of specialist consultant-led dermatology services, located in Arundel, West Sussex.

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 exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of regulated activities and services and these are set out in Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Tarrant Street Clinic provides a range of specialist dermatological aesthetics services, for example Dermapen and photodynamic therapy, which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.

The practice is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide the following regulated activities: Diagnostic and screening procedures; Treatment of disease, disorder or injury; Surgical procedures.

There are two managing partners and clinical services are provided by one partner who is a consultant dermatologist and the medical director for the service.

The second managing partner 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.

We received written and verbal feedback about the practice from 25 patients on the day of inspection. Feedback from patients was positive about the service and care provided. Patients described the service as being caring, respectful and professional. Several patients commented upon the excellence in clinical care afforded to them.

Our key findings were :

• Staff had high levels of skills, knowledge and experience to deliver the care and treatment offered by the service.
• Services were offered on a private, fee paying basis only.
• Facilities were of a high standard and were well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• Patients were provided with detailed treatment plans to support their care and treatment.
• Patients received full and detailed explanations of any treatment options.
• The service had systems in place to promote the reporting of incidents.
• There were infection prevention and control policies and procedures in place to reduce the risk and spread of infection.
• The service encouraged and valued feedback from patients and staff. Feedback from patients was highly positive.
• The provider had clear systems and processes in place to ensure care was delivered safely and good governance and management was supported.
• The service completed a number of clinical and non-clinical audits to assess performance and ensure care provided was safe.
• There was a focus upon continuous improvement and exploration of innovations in treatment to achieve optimum outcomes for patients.
• The provider shared their specialist knowledge with the wider community through journals, attending education events and training and networking with other clinical professionals.
• The culture of the service encouraged candour, openness and honesty.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• To ensure that all infection prevention and control processes and procedures are subject to regular audit.
• Review accessibility and version control of organisational policies stored electronically to ensure staff have access to up to date guidance.

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