Doctor Care Anywhere

Updated 23 October 2023

Doctor Care Anywhere provides private online GP and ANP (Advanced Nurse Practitioners) appointments. They are one of the largest providers of telehealth services. The service is provided for both self-funding patients and members of other organisations with whom the service has contracts in place. Self-funding patients either pay a subscription (monthly or annual plans are available) or purchase a one-off consultation each time they use the service. Consultations with employees of corporate clients and members of insurance companies are funded according to the respective terms agreed with each organisation. The service’s registered offices are located at 13 -15 Bouverie St, Temple, London EC4Y 8DP.

Patients can book appointments at a time to suit them, with a doctor or Advanced Nurse Practitioner of their choice, via a phone app, or online portal, developed by the service. Clinicians working remotely, conduct consultations with patients and, where appropriate, issue prescriptions or make referrals to specialists. The provider carries out approximately 65,000 consultations a month.

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, doctors and advanced nurse practitioners 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.

Updated 23 October 2023

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We rated this service as Requires Improvement overall. (Previous inspection September 2019 – Good)

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Requires improvement

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Requires improvement

We carried out this announced comprehensive inspection of Doctor Care Anywhere under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. 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.

Doctor Care Anywhere provides private online GP and ANP (Advanced Nurse Practitioners) appointments via video and phone consultations. The Chief Medical Officer 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.

At this inspection we found:

• The service had systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When they did happen, the service learned from them and improved their processes.
• The provider had systems in place to protect people from avoidable harm and abuse
• The service routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided.
• Staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients could access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
• The service had a comprehensive business development strategy that monitored the service provided to assure patient satisfaction.
• The governance arrangements in relation to monitoring, auditing and staff resources needs to be reviewed to ensure prescribing protocols are adhered by all clinicians and consultation notes meet GMC standards.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation. The provider had established a Management and Leadership Academy and had developed an Apprenticeship program to encourage their staff to complete more enhanced learning.

The areas where the provider must make improvements are:

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.

• Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review the mechanisms for disseminating information about incidents in order to be confident that all staff are made aware of any learning from incidents.
• Continue to focus on and review staff engagement.
• Review the arrangements for all teams in relation to formal team meetings.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Healthcare