Index Medical Ltd is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Following an inspection 16 April 2019 by a team from the CQC the final report was published 04 June 2019 which rated the service ‘Good’ on all 5 aspects of the inspection framework:
- Safe
- Effective
- Caring
- Responsive
- Well-led
Since July 2021, the CQC inspects services on a monthly basis, focusing on safety and how effective a service is led.
Regulations for online healthcare providers
Following media criticism Oct 2016 regarding poor practices at some providers, the Care Quality Commission developed detailed guidance for online healthcare providers in March 2017 (PDF), followed shortly by a round of inspections of all CQC registered online healthcare providers. Given the short timeframe to implement the new guidance, many providers were found to be in need of improvement in certain areas. These improvements were completed and checked in follow-up inspections by the CQC later that year.
The CQC now hold twice-yearly group meetings with online healthcare providers which proves very useful, and which the directors from Index Medical Ltd attend and contribute.
The 2019 inspections follow updated CQC guidance (PDF) and cover areas such as:
- Prescribing guidelines and audit
- Patient identification
- Safeguarding, capacity, and consent
- Communicating with GPs
- Professional indemnity
- Responding to issues such as complaints
- Diversity and inclusion
The new detailed guidance for online healthcare and other CQC regulations ensure high standards, accurate information, careful checks are carried out, patient safety, and genuine medicine is dispensed. The new guidance has improved standards and is welcomed by Index Medical Ltd. It is our view this approach should be applied to the whole of the online prescribing landscape in the UK, and it is encouraging that the GPhC are supportive of this.