Archived: TPC Group Limited

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 at The Cosmetic Skin Clinic in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire on 21 October 2022. The service was registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in March 2019. We carried out this first rated inspection as part of our regulatory functions. The inspection was undertaken to check whether the service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

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.

The Cosmetic Skin Clinic provides a range of independent dermatology services, including non-surgical cosmetic interventions, which are not within CQC scope of registration. We did not inspect, or report on, those services that are outside the scope of registration.

The service is registered with the CQC to provide the following three regulated activities:

• Diagnostic and screening procedures
• Surgical procedures
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

Therefore, we only inspected treatments relating to medical conditions which include treatment for excessive sweating (hyperhidrosis) and non-surgical treatments for a range of skin conditions.

The Head of Clinical Service (Non-Surgical) is the CQC registered manager. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the CQC 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:

• There were clear systems to keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse. Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses.
• The leadership team organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs following best practice guidelines.
• Staff were highly skilled and kept up to date in their specialist field. They reviewed and monitored care and treatment to ensure the services provided were effective.
• Feedback from patients was consistently positive and highlighted a strong person-centred culture. Other feedback commented the treatment had given the patient extra confidence due to an improved appearance.
• Services were tailored to meet the needs of individual fee-paying patients. Treatments were delivered in a flexible way that ensured choice and where appropriate, continuity of care.
• There was a clinic-specific vision which linked into the overarching provider vision and strategy. We saw evidence of good local leadership and good integration with the provider and other services within the provider group.

We saw an area of outstanding practice:

• Leaders had the integrity, skills and abilities to run the service. They had a deep understanding of issues, challenges and priorities within the aesthetic sector, and beyond. There was evidence of innovation and engagement with external stakeholders. Shared work across the sector included engagement with the Joint Council of Cosmetic Practitioners and the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health to deliver safe change and improvement to the sector. Further opportunities to participate in benchmarking and peer review were proactively pursued.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services