The client organisations we spoke with were complimentary of the service provided. One NHS principal radiographer commented,“4 Ways provide a superb service and have an excellent audit process. The turnaround time is excellent for the one hour target, at least 90% are completed in 30 minutes. The manager and the staff are excellent and very efficient.”

The Head of Diagnostics of a private organisation said, “4 Ways is open and transparent and easy to work with. The staff respond promptly and the reports are balanced and accurate. We are very pleased with them."

The provider is accredited by standards organisations, such as the Imaging Services Accreditation Scheme (ISAS) for radiological reporting, administered by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service(UKAS). The process and procedures conformed to the International Standards Organisation standard ISO 9001 and the use of information technology conformed to ISO 27001. These accreditations had ensured that best practice was followed, that the process and procedures were tightly controlled and externally validated and that standards were maintained at all times.

The clinical audit team routinely audited 10% of the CT and MRI scanned images and 2% of the plain film images to check that the correct diagnosis had been given. Prompt action had been taken to rectify any discrepancies.

We concluded that 4 Ways Healthcare Limited was compliant in all the five essential standards of quality and safety.

We talked to staff who were employed by the service as well as radiologists contracted to analyse and write reports. The service did not provide direct patient care, therefore we were unable to talk to people who used the service. Staff and radiologists told us that 4 Ways Healthcare was a nice place to work and that they felt supported by management. We were told that the service had improved significantly over the past 18 months since the new Chief Executive Officer had taken over.

We reviewed records and performance data and found that the service was exceeding its targets and had good quality assurance processes in place.

Staff told us how there was always sufficient cover to meet demand. Cover was provided 24 hours from operations staff as well as contracted radiologists.