We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 6 November 2018 to ask the service the following key questions; Are services safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led?

Our findings were:

Are services safe?

We found that this service was not providing safe services in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services effective?

There was insufficient evidence available to support any judgement in this key question.

Are services caring?

There was insufficient evidence available to support any judgement in this key question.

Are services responsive?

There was insufficient evidence available to support any judgement in this key question.

Are services well-led?

There was insufficient evidence available to support any judgement in this key question.

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the practice service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Medex House is a service intended to provide acne treatment to private patients.

The sole doctor at Medex House 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.

We found that only two patients had been treated at Medex House since April 2017. No patients were on the premises during the course of the inspection.

As a result the provider had not undertaken any feedback or patient satisfaction exercise nor had any CQC feedback cards been completed.

Our key findings were:

• The provider had a range of policies and protocols to support safe care and treatment.
• The doctor and staff had received training appropriate to their role.
• The provider had not undertaken an infection prevention and control audit.
• No legionella risk assessment or five yearly fixed wiring check had been carried out.

We identified regulations that were not being met and the provider must:

• Ensure that the premises are subject to a legionella risk assessment.
• Ensure the premises have a five yearly check of the fixed electrical wiring.
• Ensure that an infection prevention and control audit is undertaken.

You can see full details of the regulations not being met at the end of this report.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP Chief Inspector of General Practice

Because the service was not yet operational we were unable to speak to people who had had experience of receiving treatment. We visited the provider's premises, we looked at their policies and procedures and we spoke with the registered manager.