Clinical Partners Head Office

Updated 6 October 2023

The service is provided by Clinical Partners

Clinical Partners is registered to provide the following regulated activity:

• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

Clinical Partners is an independent outpatient private mental health service. The service offers psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy for adults and children. This includes assessments and diagnosis for conditions including Autism, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Bipolar, Depression and Anxiety. There are 21 locations nationwide.

They operate all over the country from satellite locations for private patients and consulting rooms. They work with both private and NHS patients.

The service registered with the CQC in November 2020 and and had not been inspected before.

How we inspected this service

During the inspection visit to the service, the inspection team:

• spoke with three patients who had used the service

• reviewed feedback from 30 patient reviews.

• spoke with 16 staff such as the registered manager, consultant psychiatrist, psychologists, Human Resource staff and administrative staff.

• reviewed 8 treatment records

• checked how medicines were managed

• reviewed information and documents relating to the operation and management of the service.

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 6 October 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 unannounced comprehensive inspection at the registered location for Clinical Partners on 18th July 2023, as the service had not been previously inspected.

Clinical Partners provides independent outpatient private mental health services; psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy for adults and children. The service also carries out assessments and diagnosis for conditions including Autism, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Bipolar, Depression and Anxiety. They operate from 21 locations nationwide. These include Lancashire and South Cumbria, Merseyside and Birmingham.

They work with both private and NHS patients. They work closely with local authorities and Commissioners to reduce the NHS waiting list of patients waiting for neurological development assessments for adults and children. These can be patients who have been on the waiting list in excess of three years.

The service moved to virtual practices in 2020 due to the Covid 19 restrictions. Since these restrictions have been fully lifted, clinicians now see patients face to face again but the majority of appointments are online.

Private outpatient consultations take place in locations across the country. These appointments are booked rooms. When using NHS premises for consultations these are undertaken in clinics and health centres, with 35% of private outpatient appointments online and 60% of their workload is for the NHS

Their clinical commissioners can be from anywhere in the country, the last ones worked they with were in Birmingham, Bradford, London, Cheshire and Wirral.

The Chief Executive 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.

We reviewed feedback that the provider had collated since opening the service in 2020.

The majority of patients were complimentary about the service.

Our key findings were:

• The service provided safe care and treatment. The provider ensured that patients had comprehensive assessments for both their mental and physical health prior to treatment.
• The service safely managed medicines. The consultant psychiatrist prescribed medicines and they were administered to patients in line with legal requirements and current national guidance.
• Staff supported patients to make informed decisions about treatment. The service ensured that patients were given information that included how the treatment worked and the costs involved. Patients we spoke with told us that they were given enough time to ask questions before they committed to starting treatment.
• The service had enough qualified staff to provide high quality care and treatment to patients.

• Access into the service was easy. The provider’s website clearly set out how patients could contact the service. The service responded promptly to enquiries and ensured patients were seen in a timely manner.
• There were clear responsibilities, roles and systems of accountability to support good governance and management.

We saw the following outstanding practice:

• They had a long-running charitable partnership with children’s hospice providing them with financial support, as well as sponsorship of their 2023 bereavement campaign.

• They worked collaboratively with clinical experts and autistic creators to produce autism unlocked. This was a dedicated digital space designed to support autistic people and their families, through proven clinical strategies and insights from real lived experience.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• The provider should ensure they have sight of all staff training completed.