Natural Look Clinic

Updated 19 November 2020

The CQC carried out a responsive follow up inspection at Natural Look Clinic on the 15 October 2020. This inspection was undertaken following a notice served to the provider under section 31 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. The section 31 notice was served in August 2020 and required the provider to immediately suspend the carrying out of any surgical procedures which require local anaesthetic or sedation on patients.

The section 31 notice was served following an inspection carried out in August 2020 in response to concerns received. In August we found patients may have been exposed to a risk of harm due to the use of conscious sedation, the management of patients who become unwell during treatment and how this was escalated, the governance processes at the service and the management of medicines.

Following the inspection in August we rated safe and well led as inadequate.

We inspected this service using our focused inspection methodology. We carried out a short notice inspection on 15 October 2020.

Updated 19 November 2020

The CQC carried out a responsive follow up inspection at Natural Look Clinic on the 15 October 2020. This inspection was undertaken following a notice served to the provider under section 31 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. The section 31 notice was served in August 2020 and required the provider to immediately suspend the carrying out of any surgical procedures which require local anaesthetic or sedation on patients.

We undertook the inspection in October 2020 to see if improvements to the service had been made.

Natural Look Clinic is operated by NLK Limited.

The service provides pre-operative assessment and post-operative follow up, including wound care for surgical procedures in cosmetic surgery. On site operative surgical procedures include liposuction and fat transfer, breast augmentation with or without uplift, non-major breast reductions, hair transplant, upper lid blepharoplasty, pinnaplasty, labiaplasty, mini-abdominoplasty/small abdominoplasty and mini-facelift.

Documentation submitted to CQC by the provider stated that all procedures were carried out under local anaesthesia with conscious sedation.

The service is registered for the regulated activities of diagnostic and screening procedures, services in slimming clinics, surgical procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

Our rating of this service improved. We rated it as requires improvement overall because;

• The service provided mandatory training in key skills to all staff. Mandatory training had been updated and new processes introduced. Clinical staff understood how to protect patients from abuse and work with other agencies to do so. Staff used equipment and control measures to protect patients, themselves and others from infection
• The service had introduced new equipment and processes to monitor and record patients under conscious sedation and reduce their risk of deterioration. Additional training on identifying and acting on patients that may become unwell had been provided
• The service was updating systems and processes to safely prescribe, administer, record and store medicines
• The service had made changes to their senior team to strengthen leadership. New managers had the skills and abilities to run the service. Improvements had been made to governance processes throughout the organisation.

However;

• We were unable to see if new policies and procedures had been implemented with patients and their records as no treatments had been undertaken since our last inspection
• We were not assured that new policies and procedures had become embedded with staff. Training on new equipment had yet to be implemented and incorporated into policies
• Not all non-clinical staff had received safeguarding training appropriate to their role
• Gaps in documentation relating to medical staff practicing privileges were identified
• Records of risks were not maintained, nor any actions taken to mitigate these risks

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it must take some actions to comply with the regulations.

Updated 19 November 2020

Our rating of this service improved. We rated it as requires improvement because:

• The service provided mandatory training in key skills to all staff. Mandatory training had been updated and new processes introduced. Clinical staff understood how to protect patients from abuse and work with other agencies to do so. Staff used equipment and control measures to protect patients, themselves and others from infection
• The service had introduced new equipment and processes to monitor and record patients under conscious sedation and reduce their risk of deterioration. Additional training on identifying and acting on patients that may become unwell had been provided
• The service was updating systems and processes to safely prescribe, administer, record and store medicines
• The service had made changes to their senior team to strengthen leadership. New managers had the skills and abilities to run the service. Improvements had been made to governance processes throughout the organisation

However

• We were unable to see if new policies and procedures had been implemented with patients and their records as no treatments had been undertaken since our last inspection
• We were not assured that new policies and procedures had become embedded with staff. Training on new equipment had yet to be implemented and incorporated into policies
• Not all non-clinical staff had received safeguarding training appropriate to their role. Gaps in documentation relating to medical staff practicing privileges were identified
• Records of risks were not maintained, nor any actions taken to mitigate these risks