Updated 29 October 2019
Background
Online Clinic (UK) Limited provides online consultations to patients, through online forms and a messaging system conducted within the patients online record, for a condition selected by the patient themselves. A GP will then review the request, may ask for further information and if appropriate, provide a private prescription to be dispensed by a designated pharmacy.
The service is delivered from the website; and the headquarters is located at Shakespeare House, 168 Lavender Hill, London, SW11 5TG.
A registered manager is in place. 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.
There are eight GPs providing remote consultations for the service in addition to a clinical lead who provides oversight of clinical practice. The GPs are of self employed status working for the provider under a practising privileges agreement. At the headquarters there is a service manager, patient co-ordinator, administration and IT staff.
Online Clinic (UK) Limited are registered with the Care Quality Commission for the regulated activity of treatment of disease, disorder or injury. The provider is not registered for the regulated activity of transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely despite providing remote clinical advice services. We raised this with the provider who immediately made the appropriate application to add the regulated activity.
How we inspected this service
Before the inspection we gathered and reviewed information from the provider. During this inspection we spoke to the Registered Manager, clinical lead and members of the management and administration team.
To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we 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.