Archived: MASTA Travel Clinic Marylebone

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