Ashford and St Peters MRI is operated by Alliance Medical Limited who took over the service in August 2006. The service registered with Care Quality Commission in 2010. Alliance Medical Limited has a lease of building agreement with a co-located hospital until April 2029 providing Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans. An MRI is a type of scan that uses magnets and radio waves to produce detailed images of the inside of the body. MRI services are provided to self-funded and NHS patients within the setting of a co-located hospital in Chertsey. The service also had a contract in place to scan patients from other co-located hospitals.

The service specialises in neuroradiology, orthopaedics, neonatal and cardiology. The service provides scans to the co-located hospital accident and emergency departments, outpatient department and in-patient services.

The service also delivers two specialist cardiac MRI clinics. Cardiologists from the trust supervise cardiac stress scans with a specialist gynaecology MRI clinic once a week. The unit manages diaries to accommodate in-patients daily.

The service currently has one scanner with a weight limit of 150kg. However, the organisation has secured a contract extension with the trust, under which two new scanners will be installed and operational by April 2019. The two new scanners will replace the current scanner at the unit to meet the demand for MRI diagnostic scans within the area. The two new scanners will be a 1.5 Tesla and 3 Tesla machines.

The MRI unit operates between 8am to 8pm, seven days a week supported by experienced staff, working in accordance with staffing guidelines.

We last inspected this location in March 2013. Our inspection found the provider compliant with the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the unannounced inspection on 11 January 2019.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

During our inspection we spoke to the manager of the unit, three staff who were on duty and two people who used the service. We also reviewed records and policies. The purpose of our inspection was to review the complaints process and system for receiving and dealing with complaints. When we entered the MRI unit we could see that there was information available for people to read. For example, there were leaflets about how to report a complaint and the procedure for complaints handling.

All the staff that we spoke with were able to explain the procedure for making a complaint and also for taking a complaint from a person who had used the service. One member of staff told us "It is important that we take full details of the complaint so that it can be investigated fully by the relevant member of staff." We also spoke with a person who had used the service. They told us "I feel that I have had everything explained fully and would have no hesitation in making a complaint if the need arose. I would know what to do."

We saw that the MRI unit had an up to date complaints policy and we also saw that they had a robust system for recording and investigating any complaints. For example, we saw the complaints log and were able to see the response and the outcome. We saw that every member of staff who worked on the unit had received training in how to handle complaints.

Patients were pleased with the care that was afforded them. They said ‘my fears have been allayed’ and ‘very stressful environment but staff were very nice and made me feel at ease 10 out of 10’. They found that the unit was clean and appreciated being able to schedule appointments on a Sunday.