Cosmetic surgery clinic near Colchester rated 'inadequate' by inspectors
Dr Glancey Clinics will be inspected again within six months
A clinic near Colchester has been placed in special measures and rated ‘inadequate’ by a health watchdog after an inspection.
Dr Glancey Clinics, which provides independent surgical and non-surgical aesthetic services, will be inspected again within six months – and if insufficient improvements have been made the Care Quality Commission has warned it will take action to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating the service.
Dr Ludmila Glancey told the LDRS they are “committed to putting things right” and have put in place the recommendations the CQC made.
The clinic was found not to have adequate safety systems and processes in place.
The processes for documenting care and treatment patients received were also not always completed, when the CQC visited its home at the Constable Country Medical Centre in East Bergholt in January.
The CQC also found that not all staff had completed training relevant to their role and the leadership and governance arrangements at the service were not effective.
There was little understanding of the management of risks, and there was a lack of assurance and failures in the systems and processes to ensure safe, effective and well led services, it added.
Though the inspectors recognised staff treated patients with “compassion, respect and kindness” and involved them in decisions about their care and the service encouraged and valued feedback from patients.
Services at the clinic include those that fall under registration, such as hair transplants, nb liposuction, labiaplasty, surgical face and neck lifts, thread lift, hay fever injections (Kenalog), skinny jab and joint injections.
The CQC says it rated the service inadequate, following a visit on January 11, because it was not able to evidence that all staff received up-to-date training appropriate to their role which included safeguarding children and safeguarding adults, infection prevention and control and fire safety training.
The service did not have appropriate arrangements in place for the management of infection prevention and control.
And the service was not able to evidence staff immunisation checks were complete and up to date.
There were ineffective systems and arrangements for managing and storing medicines, including controlled drugs, refrigerated medicines, emergency medicines and medical equipment.
The service did not have a system to check that patients were over the age of 18 years where necessary before offering treatment.
Special measures
Dr Rosie Benneyworth, Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care said in her CQC report: “I am placing this service in special measures.
“Services placed in special measures will be inspected again within six months.
“If insufficient improvements have been made such that there remains a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating the service.
“This will lead to cancelling their registration or to varying the terms of their registration within six months if they do not improve.
“The service will be kept under review and if needed could be escalated to urgent enforcement action.
“Where necessary,another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough improvement, we will move to close the service by adopting our proposal to remove this location or cancel the provider’s registration.
“Special measures will give people who use the service the reassurance that the care they get should improve.”
‘Committed to putting things right’
Dr Ludmila Glancey said: “As a clinic that has been in business for over twenty years, we are regulated by the CQC and we are happy and glad that they have inspected us.
“Unfortunately, being a small business we have been hit badly by the pandemic.
“We lost our registered manager and other staff members, which had a serious knock-on effect on our day to day runnings, and we have only just now, in 2022, started to restart and develop all the services we provided before the start of the pandemic.
“However, we are committed to putting things right and upholding the high standards and quality of care that our clients know and expect from us. Among other things, we are currently hiring another registered manager and registered nurse to support us in running our clinic to the highest standard.
“The CQC report outlines the findings of the day, however since the inspection all the recommended actions have been taken and we are awaiting to be re-inspected shortly by the CQC once more to ensure that all criteria has been satisfied.
“We remain in close contact with the CQC who are helping us to ensure we are fully compliant with every aspect of the key lines of enquires.”