What is The Care Quality Commission?

The Private Clinic always strives to provide patients with quality service. Please find a full explanation below of the great work the CQC does to ensure that patients receive the best standard of care.

What is CQC?

CQC stands for Care Quality Commission and they are an independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. It is the CQC’s job to ensure that health and social care establishments are providing people with safe, effective, compassionate and high-quality care.

Why is the CQC important?

When you are accredited by the CQC it means that as a care provider you are meeting all of the standards that have been set out by the CQC which are also approved by the government and NHS. When it comes to choosing a clinic, you will be able to differentiate between average to excellent health providers.

What are the CQC standards?

The key areas that the CQC looks out for are categorised into 13 categories that form CQC’s Fundamental Standards.

1. Person-centred care

The care and treatment must be appropriate and reflect service users’ needs and preferences.

2. Dignity and Respect

The patients must be treated with dignity and respect.

3. Consent

The care and treatment must only be provided with consent.

4. Safety

The care and treatment offered by the clinic must be provided in a safe way.

5. Safeguarding from abuse

All patients must be protected from abuse and improper treatment.

6. Food and drink

The patients’ nutritional and hydration needs must be met.

7. Premises and equipment

All premises and equipment used must be clean, secure, suitable and used properly.

8. Complaints

All complaints must be appropriately investigated, and appropriate action taken in response.

9. Good governance

Clinic systems and processes must be established to ensure compliance with the fundamental standards.

10. Staffing

There must be sufficient numbers of suitably qualified, competent, skilled and experienced staff deployed.

11. Fit and proper staff

All persons employed must be of good character, have the necessary qualifications, skills and experience, and be able to perform the work for which they are employed.

12. Duty of candour

All registered persons must be open and transparent with service users about their care and treatment.

13. Display of ratings

The provider must display CQC ratings in a public place. They must also include this information on their website and make their CQC reports available to the patient.

What are the CQC ratings?

There are 4 levels of CQC ratings:

• Outstanding – The service is performing exceptionally well.
• Good – The service is performing well and meeting our expectations.
• Requires improvement – The service is not performing as well as it should, and CQC have told the service how it must improve.
• Inadequate – The service is performing badly, and action has been taken against the person or organisation that runs it.

A CQC inspection will grade the clinic on 5 key inspection areas; Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-Led and an overall score will then be awarded.

Why does a clinic need a CQC registration?

All health and social care providers must be registered with the Care Quality Commission otherwise they will be committing an offence. The CQC also offers advice to all of its registered clinics to help you ensure that you are following the correct protocol and a professional service.

CQC The Private Clinic

The Private Clinic is fully registered with the Care Quality Commission and since opening our doors in 1983, our clinics nationwide have passed numerous unannounced and announced CQC inspections. We are proud that we have received on a number of occasions commendations for the quality of our high standards. The Private Clinic are always striving for the best in quality and care.

All surgeons that work for us in our CQC registered clinics are also registered with the General Medical Council which is a public body that maintains an official register of all medical practitioners within the United Kingdom.

CQC 2022 report for The Private Clinic London Harley Street

Our London Harley Street clinic was awarded GOOD overall and in all inspection areas including safe, effective, caring, well led and responsive.

See the full CQC clinic London Harley Street report here.

CQC 2021 report for The Private Clinic Northampton

Our Northampton clinic was awarded an overall rating of GOOD in all inspection areas including safe, effective, caring, well led and responsive.

See the full CQC clinic Northampton report here

CQC 2020 report for The Private Clinic Birmingham

Our Birmingham clinic was awarded an overall rating of GOOD and achieved an OUTSTANDING rating in our quality of care. Our medical and administrative teams work very hard to ensure these excellent results.

See the full CQC clinic Birmingham report here

CQC 2020 report for The Private Clinic Manchester

Our Manchester Clinic achieved an overall score of GOOD after achieving good in safe, effective, well led, caring and responsive and this can be seen in the dedicated hard work from the team.

See the full CQC clinic Manchester report here

CQC 2019 report for The Private Clinic London Fitzroy Hospital

 Our London Fitzroy Hospital achieved a GOOD CQC score in June 2019. We purposely built The Fitzroy hospital in 2016 and so to be recognised for being a safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led hospital has been very rewarding. Our word of mouth score of 96% also reinforces our aims to ensure every patients journey is an outstanding one.

See full CQC clinic The Fitzroy London Hospital report here

CQC 2022 report for The Private Clinic Leeds

Our Leeds clinic CQC overall rating was GOOD in November 2022. The dedicated care from our Leeds clinic time is evident in our CQC report which notes that staff supported patients to make informed decisions about their care and treatment. Stafff treated patients with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, and took account of their individual needs.

See the full CQC clinic Leeds report here

If you would like to make an appointment for Plastic Surgery including Breast, Facial and Body surgery, Varicose Vein Removal, Hair Transplant Procedures, Skin Rejuvenation, Vaser Liposuction and Body Contouring or Bunion Surgery please contact us on 0333 920 2471 or use our online contact form.

We have clinics nationwide in London Harley Street, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Northampton.