The Care Oncology Clinic at 76 Harley Street

Updated 14 June 2023

The Care Oncology Clinic at 76 Harley Street is an independent clinic in central London.

Services are provided from: 76 Harley Street, London W1G 7HH. We visited this location as part of the inspection on 21 March 2023.

The service provides care and treatment to cancer patients. On average the service offers 250 appointments per month.

The service was open to adults only.

Online services can be accessed from the practice website: www.careoncologyclinic.com

The clinic is open from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday.

The clinical team consists of four consultant oncologists supported by a clinic manager and a team of administrative staff.

The service is registered with the CQC to provide the regulated activities of treatment of disease, disorder or injury and diagnostic and screening procedures.

How we inspected this service

Pre-inspection information was gathered and reviewed before the inspection. We spoke with a range of clinical and non-clinical staff. We looked at records related to patient assessments and the provision of care and treatment. We also reviewed documentation related to the management of the service. We reviewed patient feedback collected by the service.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we always ask the following five questions:

• Is it safe?
• Is it effective?
• Is it caring?
• Is it responsive to people’s needs?
• Is it well-led?

These questions therefore formed the framework for the areas we looked at during the inspection.

Updated 14 June 2023

This service is rated as Good overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Care Oncology Clinic at 76 Harley Street on 21 March 2023 as part of our inspection programme.

The service offered care and treatment to cancer patients.

The clinic manager 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.

For reasons of safety and infection prevention and control related to the COVID-19 pandemic, we did not request patient feedback with CQC comment cards. We spoke to four patients during this inspection and received positive feedback.

Our key findings were:

• The service had good systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When they did happen, the service learned from them and improved their processes.
• The service routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
• There was evidence of quality improvement activity including clinical audits.
• Consultations were comprehensive and undertaken in a professional manner.
• Consent procedures were in place and these were in line with legal requirements.
• Staff members were knowledgeable and had the experience and skills required to carry out their roles.
• Staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients could access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
• The service had systems to manage and learn from complaints.
• The service held regular clinical governance meetings and minutes were maintained.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review the complaints policy and include information regarding how to escalate the complaint if the patient was not satisfied with the response to their complaint.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Health Care