Pixie and Sera

Updated 28 March 2023

The provider, Dr Bernadette McKenna & Dr Sera Shoukru, provides private general practice services from the following location in London:

• Pixie and Sera, 1st Floor, 5 Devonshire Place, London, W1G 6HL

The location was registered with the CQC in November 2021 to provide the regulated activities of Diagnostic and screening procedures, Family planning, and Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

The service provides private consultations with general practitioners at the registered location and via telephone and video conferencing. Service users can access a wide range of blood tests and diagnostic screening via third-party organisations. The service is available to individuals aged 16 years and over.

The service is open Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 6pm. Appointments can be booked over the telephone on in person.

Details of the service are set out on the website - www.pixieandsera.com

Staff comprise of six GPs (male and female), a practice manager and small team of patient support and administrative staff.

How we inspected this service

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.

This included:

• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• Conducting staff interviews with the practice manager and two non-clinical staff members.
• A site visit to review a sample of service user records and consultations and an interview with a GP to discuss the findings.

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 28 March 2023

This service is rated as Good overall.

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 Pixie and Sera as part of our inspection programme.

The service offers consultations with general practitioners. In addition, the service provides pathology, diagnostic screening and referrals to specialists under arrangements with third-party service providers.

This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of some, but not all, of the services it provides. There are some exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of regulated activities and services and these are set out in Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Pixie and Sera provides a range of non-surgical cosmetic interventions, for example anti-wrinkle injections and dermal fillers which are not within CQC scope of registration. Therefore, we did not inspect or report on these services.

The practice manager 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.

Feedback we received about the service was positive and indicated that patients were treated with kindness and respect and staff were knowledgeable and professional.

Our key findings were:

• The service had systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When they did happen, the provider learned from them and improved their processes.
• The service routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
• The service had systems and processes in place to ensure that patients were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in decisions about their care and treatment.
• Patients were able to access care and treatment within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
• The service had systems in place to collect and analyse feedback from patients.
• There was a clear leadership structure to support good governance and management.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Improve the system for auditing clinical record keeping.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services