Archived: MASTA Travel Clinic Marylebone

Updated 14 October 2019

The provider MASTA (Medical Advisory Service for Travellers Abroad) Limited has more than 170 private clinics across the UK. McKesson UK (a pharmaceutical distributor and healthcare information technology company) owns MASTA. The head office for the provider is based in Leeds. The medical team, pharmacy team, head of operations and a range of departments such as human resources (HR) are based there.

The provider is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for the regulated activities of diagnostic and screening procedures and the treatment of disease, disorder or injury, to be delivered at the MASTA Travel Clinic Marylebone.

MASTA Travel Clinic Marylebone is located downstairs within John Bell & Croyden at 50-54 Wigmore St, Marylebone, London W1U 2AU. There is level access, and an accessible toilet. There are no car parking facilities on site, however there are parking facilities within a fifteen-minute walk and there are good public transport links to the clinic.

The opening hours of MASTA Travel Clinic Marylebone are 10am to 6pm Monday to Saturday, with appointments available between 10.15am and 5pm. Clients can book via the provider’s website or via telephone with the central customer service team. The clinic provides telephone consultations to support travel risk assessment as well as face-to-face consultations with a travel health advisor.

The clinical team consists of two travel health advisors; one male and one female. One of the travel health advisors is a registered nurse, and the other a pharmacist. Both work part-time. One of the travel health advisors acts as registered manager with CQC.

MASTA has only one clinical room at the location, and access to shared staff toilet and kitchen facilities. Only one MASTA travel health advisor works at the location at a time. There are no administration/reception staff based at the clinic.

Further information can be found at

Updated 14 October 2019

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 service was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

MASTA Travel Clinic Marylebone provides pre-travel assessments, travel vaccinations and travel health advice. In addition, the service holds a licence to administer yellow fever vaccines. All services incur a consultation charge to the client. Treatment and intervention charges vary, dependent upon what is provided.

This service is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of some, but not all, of the services it provides. There are some general exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of service and these are set out in of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. The provider has contracts in place with several large public sector organisations, where occupational health vaccinations and blood testing for immunity status are provided to the employees of those companies. These types of arrangements are exempt by law from CQC regulation. Therefore, they did not fall into the scope of our inspection.

The lead clinician 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.

On the day of inspection, we had received 11 completed CQC comment cards, all of which were wholly positive. They described the service as being very good and efficient and staff as being professional, friendly, caring and informative.

During the inspection we reviewed a range of systems and processes relating to governance, service delivery and customer care.

Our key findings were:

• There were clear systems in place to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the provider learned from them and improved their processes across all their clinic locations.
• The effectiveness and appropriateness of care provided by the service, was routinely reviewed. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence based guidance and up-to-date travel health information and advice.
• Clients received a personalised travel plan, known as a travel health brief, which contained a risk assessment, health information, including any additional health risks relating to their destinations, and an immunisation plan specific to them.
• Staff involved clients in decisions about their care and treatment. They treated clients with kindness, compassion, dignity and respect.
• There was a leadership and managerial structure in place with clear responsibilities, roles and accountability to support good governance.
• The provider was aware of the requirements of the duty of candour.
• Staff were aware of their own roles and responsibilities. They said they felt supported by leaders and managers who were accessible when appropriate.
• Policies and procedures were up to date and had been reviewed in line with the most recent best practice guidance.
• MASTA had introduced a revised policy, across all their locations, regarding the identification of children and parental responsibility.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review the chaperone process and how staff are made aware of it, to ensure that all staff are aware of how to obtain a chaperone if a patient asks after their arrival, and that a chaperone could be obtained in a timely way under these circumstances.
• Review the arrangements to protect lone working staff and patients, as long as the SoloProtect system is not functioning.
• Review the systems for storing recruitment, training and professional registration information so that this information can be accessed when required.

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