Blackberry Clinic Limited - Croydon

Updated 4 July 2022

Blackberry Clinic Limited – Croydon is located at 308 Thornton Road, Croydon, Surrey CR0 3EU. The provider Blackberry Clinic Limited has 11 other clinics located across the south of England and in Scotland. These locations are registered separately with the CQC. The service website can be accessed through the following link www.blackberryclinic.co.uk

The provider had moved location since the last inspection.

The provider offers specialised treatment for musculoskeletal conditions including back pain, sports injuries and chronic pain conditions to mainly for adults over the age of 18. They also offered services including pain management, physiotherapy, osteopathy, chiropractic, podiatry, chiropody, and a health assessment service through another provider.

The service is open between 8am and 4pm Monday to Friday and closed on weekends. Patients who need to contact the clinic outside of the core business hours are given out of hours contact details.

How we inspected this service

Before visiting, we reviewed a range of information we hold about the service and asked them to send us some pre-inspection information which we reviewed.

During our inspection we:

• Spoke with a consultant in sport and exercise medicine, centre manager, quality and compliance manager and quality and compliance officer remotely through video conferencing.

During our site visit we:

• Spoke with staff (consultant in sport and exercise medicine, general practitioner, centre manager, quality and compliance manager, quality and compliance officer and a health advisor).
• Reviewed personnel files, practice policies and procedures and other records concerned with running the service.
• Reviewed a sample of records.
• Looked at information the service used to deliver care and treatment plans.

To get to the heart of clients’ 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 4 July 2022

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 Blackberry Clinic Limited – Croydon on 9 June 2022 to follow up on the breaches identified during the last inspection in August 2019 relating to recruitment checks, infection prevention and control, emergency medicines and equipment and staff training. At this inspection, we found that the provider had made the necessary improvements.

Blackberry Clinic Limited – Croydon is an independent provider of services and provides treatments for acute and chronic back pain, muscle sprains and strains, arthritis and joint conditions causing pain. They provide treatment and rehabilitation for sports injuries, a health screening and health assessment service and a range of specialist diagnostic services and treatments, which include x-ray, joint injections and physiotherapy.

This service is registered with 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 exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of services and these are set out in Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Blackberry Clinic Limited - Croydon is registered in respect of the provision of treatment of diseases, disorder or injury; diagnostic and screening procedures. Therefore, we were only able to inspect the health screening service as well as clinical consultations, examinations and treatments in musculoskeletal and sports medicine.

The centre manager 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:

• There was an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
• Risks to patients were assessed and monitored.
• There was a system in place to receive safety alerts issued by government departments such as the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
• Staff had the skills, knowledge, and experience to deliver effective care and treatment. Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence-based guidance.
• To ensure and monitor the quality of the service, the service completed audits which showed the effectiveness of the service.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the Duty of Candour.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity, and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• The service had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• The service held a range of policies and procedures which were in place to govern activity; staff were able to access these policies.
• We saw there was leadership within the service and the team worked together in a cohesive, supported, and open manner.
• The service proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on. Regular surveys were undertaken, and reports collated from the findings and action taken where required.

There were areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Consider undertaking a detailed legionella risk assessment.
• Consistently check the expiry dates of medicines.
• Consider holding clinical meetings.
• Provide equality and diversity training for all members of staff.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care