The Whiteley Clinic, Bristol is operated by The Whiteley Clinic Ltd. which is an organisation consisting of clinics in three locations across England. The Whiteley Clinic, Bristol was governed by and follows protocols of The Whiteley Clinic Ltd. The Bristol clinic has no inpatient beds. Facilities include one operating theatre, a waiting/recovery room, a consultation room and a room used for ultrasound screening.

The service provides outpatients and diagnostic imaging in order to perform minimally invasive surgery for vascular conditions. We inspected outpatients and diagnostic imaging and day case surgery.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the announced part of the inspection on 13 October 2016.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

The main service provided by this service was outpatients and diagnostic imaging.

We rated this clinic as Good.

We found areas of outstanding practise within outpatients and diagnostic imaging service

• The Bristol clinic was committed to providing a positive experience for patients with effective treatment for vascular conditions.

• All incidents, comments and complaints were reported and investigated by the Bristol Clinic. Staff used all opportunities to provide learning and shared the outcomes with staff in each of the other two Whiteley clinics. Bristol clinic staff were always looking for ways to improve outcomes and experiences for patients. Any change in practice that could improve the experience for patients was trialled as soon as possible.

• The Whiteley Clinic Ltd. was instrumental in creating a national database of outcomes for vascular surgery techniques and all staff at the Bristol clinic were aware of their contribution.

• Staff were competent in their roles. Staff attended training and were fully supported to attend courses that would increase their skills. Staff performance was monitored and support was provided in a sensitive way for staff to improve in areas where they did not feel confident.

• Patients were fully involved in decision making about their treatment, were informed of payment options and supported to provide relevant information to insurance companies.

• Staff took time to get to know their patients, recognised patient anxiety and worked to ensure patients felt as comfortable as they could.

• Staffing was managed in a way that ensured patients were cared for safely.

• The vision for The Whiteley Clinic Ltd. was shared with Bristol clinic staff who found senior managers and executives visible and approachable.

We found areas of good practice in relation to outpatient and diagnostic imaging:

• Processes were used that kept patients free from avoidable harm.

• Infection prevention and control processes were monitored and improvement actions were taken when necessary.

• Patient records were kept securely and were available for patient consultations.

• GPs were kept informed of procedures performed on their patients.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it should make other improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service to improve. Details are at the end of the report and are regarding processes for ensuring accurate medicine administration and more secure transportation of patient records.

Professor Ted Baker

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals