Click Hearing Limited

We found the following areas of good practice:

• The service had a good safety record with no reported safety incidents.
• There was good compliance with cleanliness, infection control and hygiene standards.
• The service used some highly specialised and innovative equipment.
• Staff were encouraged to participate in research and were supported to develop and learn new skills.
• Staff demonstrated a kind, patient and professional service to patients. They actively involved patients in their assessment and treatment.
• There were no waiting lists for the service. In most cases, patients could access same day appointments.
• The staff we met were passionate about ear care and providing a good service for the community.

However, we also found the following areas that the service provider needs to improve:

• The registered manager had a good understanding of the service’s challenges and risks, but there were no formal governance mechanisms to record and review quality, performance and risk information.
• Audiologists sought patient consent before treatment; however the patient record system did not include a formal record of consent.
• There were no checklists to record cleaning activities and enable audit of cleaning processes.

Following this inspection we told the provider that it must take action to comply with the regulations and that it should make other improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. We issued the provider with one requirement notice. Details are at the end of the report.