Archived: MASTA Travel Clinic - Monument

Updated 10 September 2019

MASTA Travel Clinic – Monument is a private clinic providing travel health advice, travel and non-travel vaccines, to children and adults. It is licenced to administer yellow fever vaccines. The clinic is registered with the Care Quality Commission under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to provide the regulated activities Diagnostic and screening procedures and Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

The head office for the provider MASTA Limited (Medical Advisory Services for Travellers Abroad) is based in Leeds. The medical team and head of operations is based there. They have many pharmacy and nurse-led travel clinics located throughout the United Kingdom.

The registered manager for the location is the senior nurse. 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 a legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

MASTA Travel Clinic – Monument is located at Flight Centre London Monument, 2/3 Eastcheap

London, EC3M 1AE. The service is co-located with a private travel booking business. MASTA Limited provides more than 170 private travel clinics across the UK. The clinic offers travel health consultations, travel and non-travel vaccines and travel medicines such as anti-malarial medicines to children and adults. The clinic is also a registered yellow fever vaccination centre. MASTA Limited are licenced for the importation and distribution of vaccination medicines, and to supply vaccines to GP surgeries and NHS services across the country. They also provide travel health training and mentorship for pharmacists and nurses.

The Monument clinic is open between 11am and 7pm on Mondays, between 8am and 4pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and is not open between Friday and Sunday. In addition MASTA provide a telephone consultation service with specialist travel nurses and have a central customer service team to manage appointment bookings. Patients are able to attend one of the provider’s other London locations when the Monument clinic is not open.

Our inspection team was made up of a CQC Inspector and a member of the CQC medicines team.

Updated 10 September 2019

This service is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection 24 May 2018 – the provider was not rated at this stage in line with our methodology at the time.)

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 MASTA Travel Clinic - Monument as part of our inspection programme 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 service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Our key findings were:

• Patients received individualised travel health brief which was tailored to their specific needs and travel plans. The comprehensive health brief outlined a risk assessment; all travel vaccinations that were either required or recommended, and other relevant health information related to their destinations.
• The clinic had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. The provider discussed any incidents with the wider corporate team where lessons learned were shared to improve their processes across all locations.
• The provider ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence based guidelines and up to date travel health information.
• Staff had the relevant skills, knowledge and experience to deliver the care and treatment provided by the service.
• Infection prevention and control (IPC) procedures were in place to reduce the risk and spread of infection, including regular IPC audits.
• There were arrangements in place to deal with medical emergencies.
• Vaccines, medicines and emergency equipment were safely managed. There were clear systems in place relating to stock control.
• The provider encouraged and valued feedback from patients and staff.
• Staff treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• There was a leadership structure in place with clear responsibilities and roles of accountability to support good governance and management.

The area where the provider should make improvements are:

• Continually review the risk assessment for defibrillator arrangements to ensure a defibrillator is accessible in case of a medical emergency.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGPChief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care