Updated 18 May 2018
We carried out this inspection 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.
Our inspection was led by a CQC inspector with a GP specialist advisor.
The House Medical Practice Ltd provides private medical, cosmetic and beauty therapy services under the trading name of Cosmedics, located at 4 Disraeli Road, London, SW15 2DS. The service is registered with the CQC to provide the regulated activities of Treatment of disease disorder and injury and surgical procedures in respect of the varicose vein treatment service provided. Other services offered but not regulated by the CQC include beauty therapy services, injected skin fillers, mole, wart and skin tag removal, and laser treatments such as hair removal.
The service is located in a converted residential and business use property with stairs and a ramp leading into a reception and separate waiting area. There are patient facilities; however these are not suitable for wheelchair users. The service has beauty therapy rooms, consultation rooms and a treatment room with separate recovery area used for vein treatment activities. There are also staff areas, a basement storage area and an administration office.
Services are available to any fee paying patient on a pay per use basis.
Services are available by appointment only between 8.30am and 5.30pm Monday to Friday. Where requested, evening and weekend appointments are offered at the providers other location.
The service is led by the medical director who is also one of five doctors in the clinical team. The clinical team is supported by two service managers and one administrative staff member. Those staff who are required to register with a professional body were registered with a licence to practice.
The service has two CQC registered managers who work jointly across both provider locations in service management roles. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the Care Quality Commission (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.
Before visiting, we reviewed a range of information we hold about the service and asked other organisations to share what they knew. During our visit we:
- Spoke with a range of clinical and non-clinical staff including doctors, service managers and administrative staff.
- Reviewed an anonymised sample of the personal care or treatment records of patients.
- Reviewed service policies, procedures and other relevant documentation.
- Inspected the premises and equipment used by the service.
- Reviewed CQC comment cards and online forms completed by service users.
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.