Archived: TMB Trading Limited. Nomad Travel Birmingham

Updated 15 November 2019

The registered provider of the clinic is TMB Trading Limited, who has owned the Nomad travel stores and clinics since June 2016. TMB Trading Limited provides ten travel clinics across England and Wales. Further information about the service can be found by accessing the website at https://www.nomadtravel.co.uk

Nomad Travel Clinic in Birmingham has recently moved to new premises and is now situated on the first floor within STA Travel shop, 37 Corporation Street, Birmingham B2 4LS. The service is accessed by stairs. Nomad Travel Clinic has no wheelchair access.

The clinic offers travel health consultations, travel and non-travel vaccines, blood tests for antibody screening and travel medicines such as anti-malarial medicines to children and adults. In addition, the service works with Public Health England to deliver post-exposure Rabies vaccination. They also provide travel related retail items.

The clinic is staffed by one registered nurse who is a travel health nurse. The nurse is supported by a travel host. The travel host acted as an administrative support for the nurse, which includes arranging appointments, discussing clients’ travel needs and meeting clients on arrival at the clinic. The Birmingham clinic is open on Tuesdays between 9.30am and 6pm; Thursdays between 10.45am and 6.45pm and Saturdays between 9.30am and 6pm. In addition, Nomad provide a telephone consultation service with travel health nurses and have a central customer service team to manage appointment bookings.

How we inspected this service

Before visiting, we reviewed a range of information we held about the clinic. We also reviewed any information that the provider returned to us, the providers’ website and any links to social media.

During our visit we:

Spoke with a range of staff including the clinical pharmacist, lead nurse, specialised travel nurse and host.

Looked at information the clinic used to deliver care and treatment plans.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we always 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 15 November 2019

This service is rated as Good overall. (This service was previously inspected on 13 November 2018, but was not rated).

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 TMB Trading Ltd Birmingham as part of our inspection programme.

TMB Trading Ltd is the registered provider for Nomad Travel Services. Nomad provides travel vaccinations, post travel support and treatment and advice travel service.

This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of the provision of advice or treatment by, or under the supervision of, a medical practitioner, including the prescribing of medicines for the purposes of travel vaccines.

One of the lead nurses of TMB Trading Limited 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.

Our key findings were:

• The provider regularly reviewed the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence based guidelines and up to date travel health information.
• Each client received individualised travel health information including supporting information on health risks related to their destinations and a written immunisation plan specific to them.
• The travel clinics offered a complete service including advice, vaccines, anti-malarial medicines and medical kits.
• The service had effective systems in place for recording, reporting and managing significant events and incidents.
• Staff demonstrated clear understanding and awareness of their responsibilities in relation to keeping patients safe and safeguarded from abuse.
• Staff were supported in their learning and development needs and had access to training as well as regular appraisals. Staff, we spoke with felt confident in raising concerns and suggesting improvement.
• The practice had no access for patients with a disability, but screening of patients calls was in place before an appointment was offered. Patients who could not access the service were referred to other local providers.
• There was a range of audits and assessments in place to monitor services and minimise risk.
• There were clear and effective processes for managing clinical and environmental risks as well as preventing, detecting and controlling the spread of infections.
• There were clear responsibilities, roles and systems of accountability to support good governance and management.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Ensure all staff working at the premises are aware of the distance to the local defibrillator in an emergency situation.
• Consider weekly download of fridge temperature data logger to support fridge readings.
• Review current processes of staff immunisation to ensure staff are not at risk.