BOSSES at hair transplant clinic in Cheshire have pledged to improve its service for patients after it was rated 'inadequate' by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The care watchdog carried out an inspection of the Cheshire Hair Transplant Clinic, formerly in Wilmslow Road, Alderley Edge, on May 10 before publishing its report on Thursday (August 17).

In its report, the CQC found the service, which was operated out of premises run by Medispa Cheshire Ltd but is no longer there, to be failing in a number of areas.

These include whether it was safe, effective and well-led, which were all rated 'inadequate'. There was not enough evidence for the CQC to rate whether services were caring.

The responsiveness of the services to people's needs was rated as 'requires improvement'.

The report did however praise Cheshire Hair Transplant Clinic for planning care to meet the needs of its patients, who were treated with kindness and compassion; given emotional support when necessary; and were able to get appointments and advice when they wanted.

Following publication of the report, a Cheshire Hair Transplant Ltd spokesperson said: "Cheshire Hair Transplant have always aimed to give the best possible care to our patients and accordingly we are disappointed with the report.

"We confirm that no restrictions were placed on our service by the CQC and we continue to work tirelessly to improve our service to patients."

Key findings in the report showed the registered manager 'did not have good oversight of the safety and quality of the service'.

Infection risk was not always controlled well and staff did not always complete and update risk assessments for each patient, identify and remove risk.

The report added the service did not always use systems and processes to safely prescribe, administer, record and store medicines. 

Clear processes to monitor the safety and effectiveness of the service, as well as make improvements, were also lacking.

And while not operating 'robust recruitment processes' for staff, managers at the service did not always ensure staff were competent for their roles.

In the report a CQC spokesman said: "Following this inspection. we served the provider a warning notice under Section 29 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

"The warning notice told the provider they were in breach of regulations 12 [safe care and treatment] and 17 [good governance] and gave the provider a timescale to make improvements to achieve compliance."

Several actions Cheshire Hair Transplant must carry out in order to improve were listed in the report.

These include having systems in place to meet the requirements of the Health and Social Care Act code of practice on infection control and prevention; ensuring medicines are prescribed, administered, recorded and store safely; ensuring staff complete training in key areas and assess, record and mitigate risks to patients; and ensuring appropriate systems are in place to govern the service, support staff to do their roles safely and manage the risks to patients.

Further details can be found in the full CQC report here.