Docklands Healthcare is operated by HCA International Limited UK. Docklands Healthcare is one of five satellite sites that sits under the umbrella of the London Bridge Hospital campus. The centre provides fast access to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), x-ray, ultrasound diagnostics and outpatient clinics in the following specialties: orthopaedics, neurology, gastroenterology and gynaecology.

The service has three consultation rooms, three changing cubicles, x-ray room, ultrasound room and MRI.

The service provides care and treatment to patients who self-pay or whose insurance company pays for their care.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out an unannounced inspection on 7 March 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.

Services we rate

We have not previously rated this service. We rated it as Good overall.

We found good practice:

• The centre was clean and tidy and staff displayed a good understanding of infection prevention and control.

• The service disseminated learning from incidents through debriefing, incident newsletters, local risk registers, team meetings and emails.

• There were effective systems at the centre to ensure patient safety. All staff were aware of their roles and responsibilities in ensuring patients and their relatives were safe.

• Staff were positive about their working experience and felt supported to be part of a team.

• Patients comments and feedback about the service was positive.

• Staff demonstrated kindness and an understanding of how to meet patients’ needs.

• The service continually acted on audits to continually identify opportunities for benchmarking and improvement.

• Medicines were managed appropriately by the service.

• The service did not have a waiting list and had no delayed or cancelled appointments for non-clinical reasons in the previous 12 months.

• Staff felt valued and described effective teamwork. Staff were confident to escalate concerns if needed.

• Docklands Healthcare was part of London Bridge Hospital campus governance structure. Each campus had their own local governance team who conducted regular visits whilst the governance facilitator was the site link.

However, we also found the following issues that the service provider needs to improve:

• Although the service completed a simulated emergency exercise in x-ray, the service did not practice the emergency evacuation procedure for patients and staff in MRI. 

Nigel Acheson

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (South and London)

Two people who visited the service during our inspection were unable to talk with us as they were having scans and were unavailable. However, we looked at the overall satisfaction feedback provided either directly to the service or through the provider website. The collated feedback that we looked at showed that there is a usually high degree of satisfaction with the service.

We found that people underwent a medical history assessment as a part of their initial consultation and before any scans were provided. People were then asked to provide an update to this, or to confirm no change, at each subsequent visit although most people only used the service on a single occasion.

We looked at the hygiene and infection control procedures, including risk assessments, which showed that the service adhered to current best practice in controlling risks of cross contamination and infection.

The superintendent radiographer explained that no new staff had been employed by the service recently which meant that no induction of staff had been required. The induction procedure and requirements of the service were that only staff trained and accredited to carry out specific scans were permitted to do so.

The complaints procedure was clear and included contact details of other organisations that people could contact if they remained dissatisfied with how their concern had been dealt with by the provider.

We spoke with one person who had recently used the service. This person praised their health professionals and described the quality of their care as "excellent." We also reviewed the centre's most recent patient feedback survey results. The feedback was positive. The environment was clean and well organised and we saw that people's privacy was protected.

There were effective systems in place to ensure that the diagnostic imaging service and equipment functioned safely. The staff were trained in life support and knew what to do in the event of a medical emergency. Staff members were qualified, had regular training and opportunities for professional development. We saw evidence that the quality of the service was effectively monitored and the provider sought feedback from patients.