Updated 5 April 2023
Peninsula Heart Clinic is a cardiology centre located alongside the South West Regional Cardiothoracic Centre. It is located on the grounds of an acute hospital and has a formal partnership with a local NHS Trust (referred to as the host trust throughout the report). This co-location allows for on-site access to cardiac surgeons, anaesthetists, medical emergency team and critical care facilities should they be required.
Peninsula Heart Clinic primarily provides elective NHS outsourced services from the host trust to assist with the demands for elective work across the South West region. The service adheres to all host trust policies and processes and is viewed by staff as an extension of the existing cardiology department. NHS work accounts for 96% of elective work with the remaining 4% being private patient work. This inspection focused on staff employed by the provider and services provided for private patients.
Peninsula Heart Clinic provides both private outpatient cardiology and invasive cardiology services. These include procedures such as Angiography, Percutaneous Coronary Intervention, Pacemakers, Device Implants, Cardiac Electrophysiology and Ablation. Outpatient tests and procedures include Echocardiograms, Holter studies, Ambulatory blood pressure, resting electrocardiograms and Direct Current Cardioversion.
Specialist clinics include adult congenital heart disease, rapid access heart failure and cardiac arrhythmia clinics and fast track trans-thoracic echocardiography.
The service employs 29 members of staff, 9 cardiac physiologists via a service level agreement with the host trust and 9 consultant cardiologists working under practising privileges arrangements (a license agreed between individual medical professionals and private healthcare providers). All consultants hold substantive NHS consultant appointments. All consultants are registered with the General Medical Council with additional specialist registration.
There is a service level agreement between Peninsula Heart Clinic and the host trust. This sets out arrangements for activities such as managing records, medicines and safety incidents. Building maintenance and waste management are managed via external contracts.
In the 12 months up until 31 January 2023 the service had performed a total of 444 outpatient appointments, 501 diagnostic tests and 140 catheterisation laboratory procedures.
The service registered with the Care Quality Commission in June 2019 and is registered to provide diagnostic and screening procedures and treatment of disease, disorder and injury.
We carried out a short notice announced comprehensive inspection of private patient elective services at Peninsula Heart Clinic. We had not previously inspected or rated this location.
We rated all key questions for diagnostic and imaging services as defined within our methodology apart from effective which was inspected but not rated at this inspection
We rated them overall as good.