Archived: MASTA Travel Clinic Birmingham

Updated 9 September 2019

Our inspection team was led by a CQC lead inspector. The team included a nurse specialist advisor.

MASTA Travel Clinic Birmingham is located at Neville House, 14 Waterloo Street, Birmingham, B2 5TX. The private travel clinic is a location for the provider MASTA (Medical Advisory Service for Travellers Abroad) Limited. MASTA Limited provides more than 170 private travel clinics across

the UK. McKesson Europe AG (previously Celesio AG) provides pharmacies throughout Europe and recently acquired MASTA Limited.

The service offers travel health consultations, travel and non-travel vaccines and travel medicines such as anti-malarial medicines to children and adults. The service has recently started to offer blood tests for a range of screening for example, patients of who require blood tests for antibody screening. There is one registered nurse on duty who is a specialist travel health nurse. The nurse is supported by a head of operations (non-clinical manager) and a regional manager. There is a corporate governance structure and a senior leadership team who support the delivery of the service. Staff have access to a medical team for clinical advice and support. The nurse can see up to a maximum of 14 clients per day.

The Birmingham clinic is open from 11am to 6.30pm on Mondays and 7.45am to 3.15pm Wednesdays; appointments are available between these times. MASTA provides a telephone consultation service with specialist travel nurses and has a central customer service team to manage appointment bookings and queries.

This service was previously inspected June 2018 however, the service was not rated at the time. The purpose of this inspection was to provide a rating for 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 9 September 2019

This service is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection June 2018 – Choose a rating)

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 Medical Advisory Service for Travellers Abroad (MASTA) Travel Clinic Birmingham 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 and to rate the service.

MASTA Travel Clinic Birmingham is a private clinic providing travel health advice, travel and non-travel vaccines and travel medicines such as anti-malarial medicines to children and adults. In addition, the clinic holds a licence to administer, Yellow fever vaccines and also provides non- travel vaccines. The service was also now providing blood tests for a range of screening including as part of occupation health services. The service is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in respect of the provision of advice or treatment by, or under the supervision of, a medical practitioner, including the prescribing of medicines for the purposes of travel health.

The service is registered with the CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to provide the following regulated activities: Treatment of disease, disorder or injury; Diagnostic and screening procedures and is registered with CQC in respect of some, but not all, of the services it provides. There are some general exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to types of service and these are set out in Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. At MASTA Travel Clinic Birmingham, services are also provided to patients under arrangements made by their employer or an insurance company with whom the servicer user holds a policy (other than a standard health insurance policy). These types of arrangements are exempt by law from CQC regulation. Therefore, at MASTA Travel Clinic Birmingham, we were only able to inspect the services which are not arranged for patients by their employers or an insurance company with whom the patient holds a policy (other than a standard health insurance policy).

The lead nurse 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.

As part of our inspection we also asked for CQC comment cards to be completed by clients prior to our inspection so that people who used the service could share their views and experiences of the service. We received one completed comment cards which was positive.

Our key findings were:

• There were systems and processes in place to keep people safe such as safeguarding procedures, effective recruitment procedures and infection prevention and control, but not all risks were fully considered.
• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. Information about safety was recorded. Significant events were investigated, acted on when necessary and learning shared with staff.

• The provider routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence based guidelines, including up to date travel health information.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care. MASTA Birmingham had received positive feedback from comment cards and surveys completed by people who accessed the service.
• The service took account of patient needs and preferences. Patients could access the service in a timely manner
• There was a corporate leadership structure with clear responsibilities and systems of accountability in place to support the governance arrangements, but some areas lacked effective oversight

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Consider photographic identification checks for adults who have parental responsibility for children, in order to ascertain the correct identity.
• Provide clear information for clients regarding accessible facilities within the premises.
• Review governance systems to ensure effective oversight. For example, risk management.
• Review policies in line with their renewal dates.

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