30 May 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
We previously carried out an announced inspection of The London Migraine Clinic on the 8 February 2022. Where we found the practice was in breach of Regulations 17 Good Governance and 12 Safe Care and Treatment of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. In line with the CQC’s enforcement processes, we issued warning notices which required The London Migraine Clinic to comply with the regulations by the 5 May 2022.
At the commencement of the inspection the provider submitted a log of the actions they had taken in response to the warning notice for the breach of regulation 17 and explained they had not received the warning notice of the breach of regulation 12. However, they had partly complied with the warning notice as some of the concerns were reflected in the regulation 17 warning notice.
The London Migraine Clinic is currently rated as requires improvement overall and requires improvement for providing a safe, effective, and well-led service and good for providing a caring and responsive service.
The full report of the practice’s previous inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The London Migraine clinic on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
The London Migraine Clinic is a private clinic offering treatment for migraines, bruxism and hyperhidrosis to adults and children aged over 12 years. All services were private and subject to payment of fees, with no NHS services provided. The provider was 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 general exemptions from regulation by CQC, relating to particular types of service and these are set out in Schedule 2 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. For example, The London Migraine Clinic refers patients on to a piercer for daith (ear cartilage) piercing as a migraine treatment, which is not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect this service.
The provider consists of one doctor, who was also 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.
We carried out this announced focused warning notice inspection on 30 May 2022 at The London Migraine Clinic to check whether the provider had addressed the issues in the warning notice and now met the legal requirements.
At the inspection on 30 May 2022, we found the provider was taking action to reach compliance, however further work was required to embed this fully and demonstrate sustainability. This report covers our findings in relation to those specific areas, is not rated, and does not change the current ratings held by the practice.
Our key findings were:
- Staff had completed safeguarding training appropriate to their level.
- The provider had systems in place to support the safe recruitment of staff.
- The provider had a risk assessment in place to support the decision of which emergency medicines and equipment they held at the service.
- The provider had a system in pace to manage safety alerts from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
- The provider had incorporated the request for evidence of parental responsibility in the patient details form which was completed during admission to the service.
- The provider had started to collect data which enabled them to carry out a clinical and patient feedback audits. At the time of the inspection, they had received feedback from 10 patients about their experience of the service and outcome of the treatments.
- During the inspection, we saw that the safeguarding policies did not have a date implemented or when they were last reviewed. Therefore, although the provider has made improvements to the policies documented in the warning notice, further work was required to ensure all policies were reviewed and updated.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care