The Crescent Clinic

Updated 21 December 2021

The Crescent Clinic is operated by DrBaines.Com Ltd and carries out regulated activities from 9 The Crescent, Taunton, Somerset, TA1 4EA. A link to the service’s website is below:

https://www.drbaines.com/

This service first registered with the CQC in November 2020 and is registered to treat patients aged 12 and over. The services offered include those that fall under registration, such as mole removal, minor skin procedures involving a surgical procedure and medical acne treatment. Other procedures, that do not fall under scope of registration include non-surgical wart and verruca removal, lip fillers, skin peels, anti-ageing injectables, and dermal fillers.

The service is based in an 1807 grade II listed building, in the heart of Taunton. There are various pay & display car parks located near to the service, with front door access to the building via a security buzzer entry system.

Facilities include a reception/waiting area, two clinical rooms, admin/storage room, patient and staff toilets, and a staff kitchen area.

How we inspected this service

Before the inspection, we asked the provider to send us some information, which was reviewed prior to the inspection day. We also reviewed information held by the CQC on our internal systems.

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 21 December 2021

This service is rated as Good overall. This service was registered by the CQC on 20 November 2020 and this is the first time since then that it has been inspected and 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 The Crescent Clinic on 30 September 2021 as part of our inspection programme.

The Crescent Clinic is registered under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to provide the following regulated activities:

• Diagnostic and screening procedures.
• Surgical procedures.
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

This service provides independent dermatology services, offering a mix of regulated skin treatments as well as other non-regulated aesthetic treatments. There are some exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of regulated activities and services and these are set out in and of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. We only inspected and reported on the services which are within the scope of registration with the CQC.

The clinical practitioner 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.

Due to the current pandemic we were unable to obtain comments from patients via our normal process of asking the provider to place comment cards within the service location. However, a survey had been conducted prior to this inspection with 66 patients being contacted by the clinic. There were 34 responses, all of which contained positive feedback with high levels of satisfaction. Patients also commented on the service being well maintained and clean. We did not speak with patients on the day, as there were none attending for regulated activities.

Our key findings were:

• The service had safety systems and processes in place to keep people safe. There were systems to identify, monitor and manage risks and to learn from incidents.
• There were regular reviews of the effectiveness of treatments, services, and procedures to ensure care and treatment was delivered in line with evidence-based guidelines.
• Staff treated patients with compassion, respect and kindness and involved them in decisions about their care.
• There was a clear strategy and vision for the service. The leadership and governance arrangements promoted good quality care.

Whilst we found no breach to regulation the provider should:

• Ensure that regular water temperature testing and recording is taking place.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care