We had our first Care Quality Commission inspection on 8th February2020 and the report was issued on 7th March. The CQC is a government regulatory body that oversees small clinics like ours as well as large hospitals, and they expect much the same administrative systems in both. I have to say that a first inspection is a somewhat gruelling affair where they do a lot of rule-based box-ticking. Even the CQC admit that their inspection process needs to change!
They have judged that we are caring and responsive to our patients, though the report also mentions areas in our administration that could be more effective:-
| Are services safe? | Requires Improvement |
| Are services effective? | Requires Improvement |
| Are services caring? | Good |
| Are services responsive to people’s needs? | Good |
| Are services well-led? | Requires Improvement |
We feel that the details of the report are neither fully fair nor accurate in the way they represent our clinic, especially in relation to the training we give our reception staff which we absolutely disagree with, but we are not allowed any right of reply in the report. However, we do accept that there is room for improvement, primarily in our administrative systems. You can read the full report here. We have spent many hours since the visit to organise our administrative systems to meet their standards
