Quality and Clinical Governance

At Cleveland Clinic London our priority is to ensure that all patients are cared for in a way that is compassionate, effective, and safe. Our aim is to provide outstanding care, meeting the needs of each patient and ensuring high levels of patient satisfaction.

Cleveland Clinic London has implemented a robust Clinical Governance Framework, setting out the approach we are taking to maintain and improve quality and safety to provide every patient with the highest standard of care. Cleveland Clinic London promotes a culture of Continuous Improvement (CI), and we always strive to learn and get better.

We achieve this by:

  • Fostering a culture that promotes openness and learning.
  • Continual assessment of the quality and effectiveness of care and service through audit and feedback from patients.
  • Learning from errors to ensure improvements are implemented to reduce the risk of re-occurrence.
  • Ensuring effective risk management processes are in place to proactively minimise risks to patients, visitors and caregivers.
  • Sharing successes and celebrating outstanding practice.

Patient Safety

Ensuring your comfort and safety is our top priority, and our caregivers are dedicated to looking after you. Additionally, there are a few basic steps you can take to maintain your safety during your hospital stay.

Learn how we're keeping you safe in the hospital.

Our patient safety incident response plan

The Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) is a national initiative designed to improve patient safety, and outlines how healthcare providers should respond to patient safety incidents.

PSIRF aims to enhance patient safety by guiding healthcare providers on responding to incidents. We are excited to present our Patient Safety Incident Response Plan (PSIRP), which outlines how we will learn from these incidents to improve the quality and safety of our care and the experiences of patients, families, and carers. Our plan is adaptable, considering each unique situation and the needs of those affected.

Medical Practitioners Assurance Framework (MPAF)

Cleveland Clinic London is committed to openness, transparency and placing patient safety and quality at the heart of everything we do. As part of this, we are committed to implementing the Medical Practitioners Assurance Framework (MPAF), which aims to help strengthen systems governing the conduct of medical practitioners in the independent healthcare sector.

MPAF was published by the Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN), the representative body for independent healthcare providers in autumn 2019. It was developed under the leadership of Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, former National Medical Director at NHS England, supported by an Expert Advisory Group including representation from Spire and other acute independent providers, as well as the Patients Association, regulators and other independent bodies.

MPAF sets out best practice in four areas:

  1. Clinical governance structures.
  2. Monitoring patient safety.
  3. Appraisals of medical practitioners.
  4. Raising and responding to concerns.

We are fully supportive of MPAF and confident that we are compliant with its principles. For example:

  • Any practitioner working with Cleveland Clinic London can raise concerns through our network of Freedom to Speak Up Guardians.
  • We submit data to a number of national audits and registries and we are committed to sharing more widely.

Safeguarding Statement

Cleveland Clinic London is fully committed to providing the highest standards of safeguarding practice.

We consider safeguarding to be the responsibility of all caregivers, both clinical and non-clinical. We discharge our safeguarding duties and provide assurance of this to the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which has registered Cleveland Clinic London to provide care. All staff have a duty of care to share concerns about patient or staff welfare if they believe they are suffering, or likely to suffer harm.

The safeguarding responsibilities of Cleveland Clinic London, encompassing children, young people and adults at risk, assure the provision of safe, high-quality care for all those who entrust us with their care. As the legal frameworks, national policy and evidence change, we review our safeguarding provision regularly to ensure it is relevant and in line with our national and local authority agencies. We ensure that the duties and principles of safeguarding young people, children and adults are applied diligently and consistently using a holistic approach. We respect the need for patient autonomy and support the empowerment of patients’ right to make individual decisions.

Cleveland Clinic London works closely with agencies to deliver safeguarding responsibilities collectively, allowing us to help those needing support. 

Patient Experience

Your feedback and ways to feedback

We strive to provide outstanding and compassionate care and service, through every step of your journey. Whether you are a patient or visitor to Cleveland Clinic London, we value your feedback. We always like to know our patients are comfortable and well cared for. If you feel your visit was a particularly positive experience, we would be delighted to hear from you.

A patient experience survey will be provided to all patients after every hospital stay, procedure and visit to help us continuously monitor and improve our service. Our questionnaires are available in all patient rooms via a QR code scan on any personal smart phone or tablet, and tablets to access these can also be obtained from the nursing stations on each floor and in our outpatient centres. Each questionnaire is read and recorded, with action taken as required.

Speak to a manager of the area you are in

Each clinical department has a manager. Please speak to them directly if you experience any issues - they are always happy to help.

Concerns and complaints

Whether you're a Cleveland Clinic London patient, caregiver or a member of the public, we want to know as soon as possible about any concerns to do with our facilities or anyone working in them, so please let us know about it as soon as possible.

We hope you will feel comfortable raising your concern openly, but also appreciate that you may want to do so confidentially. Please be aware that there are circumstances where we may be required to disclose your identity by law or in the wider public interest, for example, where there are safeguarding concerns, alleged fraud, or an issue which requires investigation by an external authority, such as the police.

We recognise that there are times when things go wrong. When this happens, we want to respond swiftly and, where we can, try to put things right. If you or a family member has a concern, please raise it directly with a member of your care team. If necessary, they will escalate the feedback to a senior colleague on duty and/or our Patient Experience Manager for further intervention or support. You can choose to raise your concern anonymously, without giving anyone your name, but that may make it more difficult for us to investigate thoroughly and give you feedback on the outcome.

We also value complaints for the feedback they provide, so when patients and visitors offer criticism - or praise - we listen carefully. We will investigate the situation  thoroughly and openly so that we can explain, apologise where appropriate, and take action to improve.

All comments and complaints are investigated thoroughly, and are confidential. If you would like to get in touch you can email [email protected].

If you would like to speak directly with our Patient Experience Team, please email [email protected].

To make a formal complaint, please follow this guidance.

Getting Back to You

Acknowledgements to complaints will be sent within three working days of receiving the complaint. We will then reply in full as promptly as we can - usually within 20 working days.

If the investigation is still going on after 20 days we will write to explain the delay. In very complex cases, which may take more time, we will send you regular progress reports. We may suggest meeting you to talk through your issues and attempt to resolve them.

How we use your information

Cleveland Clinic London is committed to ensuring your health and care information is used by us to provide the best possible care, to monitor our services and improve your experience.

We are committed to exceeding the requirements of the Data Protection Legislation by adhering to multiple standards to keep information safe, accurate and used appropriately, and to providing our patients with a clear understanding of how it is used.

To find out more, please see our Privacy Policy.

Back to Top