Caroline Hill Aesthetic Skin Clinic

Updated 29 June 2021

The provider for the service is Caroline Hill Aesthetic Skin Limited who provides private aesthetic treatments, a menopause clinic and treatment for endovenous laser ablation (EVLA) for varicose veins from 119 Ecclesall Road, Sheffield, S11 9PJ.

The EVLA treatment is carried out by a Consultant Vascular Surgeon who has practicing privileges to work at the clinic and holds a contract with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to provide this treatment from this location to patients on the NHS waiting list. This treatment is carried out under local anaesthetic. The provider who is a nurse prescriber operates a menopause clinic from this location. The provider also offers a range of non-surgical cosmetic interventions, for example wrinkle relaxing injections which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.

The provider is registered with the commission to provide the regulated activity, treatment of disease, disorder and injury, diagnostic and screening and surgical procedures at this location. The provider treats patients aged over the age of 18 years.

Working with the provider and the Consultant Vascular Surgeon is a nurse who assists the Consultant during EVLA procedures, a clinic co-ordinator, administrator and two reception staff.

The clinic is open Monday to Wednesday 8am to 8pm, Friday 8am to 6pm and Saturday 9am to 5pm. The EVLA clinic is held on a Monday. Other procedures are booked in during opening hours.

Updated 29 June 2021

This service is rated as Good overall.

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 Caroline Hill Aesthetic Skin Clinic as part of our inspection programme of a new provider registration for the service. This was a first rated inspection for the service that was registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in January 2020.

This service is 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 exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of regulated activities and services and these are set out in Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Caroline Hill Aesthetic Skin Clinic provides a range of non-surgical cosmetic interventions, for example wrinkle relaxing injections which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.

The registered provider for the service is Caroline Hill Aesthetic Skin Clinic Limited who provides treatments privately and also provides some treatments, for example, varicose vein treatments under a contract with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to patients on the NHS waiting list for the procedure. The registered provider has a legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

The provider received feedback from 25 patients who attended the service in May 2021 for regulated treatments which were shared with the commission during the inspection. Feedback from patients was positive about the service. They told us staff were friendly, efficient, kind and professional.

Our key findings were:

• The provider organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs.
• The provider had systems and processes for managing risk.
• Staff were proud of the work they did and of the quality of service they provided.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Take action to ensure the appropriate maintenance requirements of equipment is maintained.
• Take action to keep up to date with NHS Improvement Patient Safety Alerts.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care