Cavendish Imaging Finchley is operated by Cavendish Imaging. Cavendish Imaging operates diagnostic imaging services across four other locations. The service at Finchley consists of two diagnostic rooms with one dedicated Cone Beam CT (CBCT) scanner and one CBCT-panoramic (OPG)-cephalometric unit. The centre is on the first floor of a building and the unit is co-located with another healthcare service.

Patients are greeted by the receptionist and wait in a dedicated waiting room before being called through for their scan.

The service provides specialist diagnostic imaging services for adults, and children and young people.

We inspected diagnostic imaging services for Finchley using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried an unannounced visit to the service on 4 December 2018.

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.

This was the first inspection of this service. We rated it as Good overall.

We found good practice in relation to diagnostic imaging:

• There were effective systems in place to keep people protected from avoidable harm.
• There were sufficient numbers of staff with the necessary skills, experience and qualifications to meet patients’ needs.
• There was a programme of mandatory training which all staff completed, and systems for checking staff competencies.
• Equipment was maintained and serviced appropriately and the environment was visibly clean.
• Staff were trained and understood what to do if a safeguarding issue was identified.
• Records were up to date and complete and kept protected from unauthorised access.
• Incidents were reported, investigated and learning was implemented.
• The service used evidence based processes and best practice, this followed recognised protocols. Scans were timely, effective and reported on in good time.
• There were effective systems in place to protect patients from harm and a good incident reporting culture. Learning from incident investigations was disseminated to staff.
• The service managed staffing effectively and services always had enough staff with the appropriate skills, experience and training to keep patients safe and to meet their care needs.
• Staff were competent in their field and kept up to date with their professional practice.
• Staff demonstrated a kind and caring approach to their patients and supported their emotional needs.
• The service had supportive and competent managers. Staff understood and were invested in the vision and values of the organisation. The culture was positive and staff demonstrated pride in the work and the service provided.
• Risks were identified, assessed and mitigated. Performance was monitored and performance information was used to make improvements.

Nigel Acheson

Chief Inspector of Hospitals