The Whitehall Clinic

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 The Whitehall Clinic on 27 May 2021 and 3 June 2021 as part of our inspection programme.

The Whitehall Clinic operates as a private doctors service and offers a range of services including private GP consultations, health screening, medical weight management, dermatology, men’s and women’s health, and psychology and mental wellbeing support.

This service is registered with the Care Quality Commission (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 which relate 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. At The Whitehall Clinic some services are provided to patients under arrangements made corporately by their employer or via an insurance provider with whom the servicer user holds an insurance policy (other than a standard health insurance). These types of arrangements are exempt by law from CQC regulation. Therefore, at The Whitehall Clinic, we were only able to inspect the services which are not arranged for patients by their employers or via an insurance provider with whom the patient holds a policy (other than a standard health insurance policy). In addition, The Whitehall Clinic offered a COVID-19 testing service, this too fell outside the scope of our inspection.

One of the directors of the provider organisation, The Wellington Place Clinic Limited, is the registered manager of The Whitehall Clinic. 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.

On the day of inspection we were unable to speak directly to patients in order to gather their views of the service. However, we received six comment cards from people who had used the service. All these comment cards were positive about the care and treatment received. We also viewed public feedback posted on the internet by patients with respect to the treatment and care received. This feedback showed generally high levels of satisfaction (although it should be noted that many of these comments were in respect of the COVID-19 testing service which fell outside the scope of this inspection).

Our key findings were:

• The service was offered on a private, fee-paying basis only and was accessible to people who chose to use it.
• Procedures were safely managed and there were effective levels of patient support and aftercare.
• Staff had the relevant skills, knowledge and experience to deliver the care and treatment offered by the service.
• The service had systems in place to identify, investigate and learn from incidents relating to the safety of patients.
• There were systems, processes and practices in place to safeguard patients and other people, who the service may come into contact with during the course of the delivery of services, from abuse. However, child safeguarding training for the organisation was not at the required level for all members of staff.
• Patient user outcomes were evaluated via reviews and direct feedback. The service had also developed a programme of clinical and non-clinical audit which it was implementing.
• The service shared relevant information with others health professionals with appropriate consent from the patient.
• The service encouraged and valued feedback from patients. We saw that patient feedback was generally positive.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Undertake appropriate assurance checks that staff are suitable to work at the service such as via Disclosure and Barring Service checks. Records of these checks should be maintained and available for scrutiny.
• Continue to embed the clinical and non-clinical audit programme within the service.
• Whilst contact with children in the clinic was limited, the service should ensure staff have been trained to the appropriate level in child safeguarding.
• Consider the installation of secondary temperature monitoring devices in medicine storage refrigerators.

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