Worcestershire Imaging Centre is operated by The Worcestershire Imaging Centre Limited. The service is commissioned by a local NHS trust and provides MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) diagnostic facilities for adults and children. We inspected diagnostic imaging services at this location.

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.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out a short notice announced inspection on 15 January 2019. This was the second inspection since registration. Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

The service provided diagnostic and screening procedures.

Services we rate

We previously did not have the authority to rate this service as legislation had not previously applied to all types of independent services, which meant that some providers had been inspected, but not rated. The department of Health had amended the performance assessment regulations to enable CQC rate almost all independent healthcare providers. We rated this service as requires improvement overall.

We found areas of practice that the service needed to improve:

• The service had no lead for safeguarding who was trained to level three and had no access to a named professional who was trained to level four. This did not meet national guidance.

• Radiographers did not have up-to-date competencies to enable them effectively to carry out their role.

• Staff told us bank staff had local induction. However, we saw no evidence that local induction had been completed as no induction checklists had been completed.

• There was lack of robust governance process in place to provide oversight around staff competencies and overall management of risks.

• Hand hygiene audits were not undertaken to measure staff compliance with the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) ‘Five Moments for Hand Hygiene.’

However, we also found the following areas of good practice:

• Staff kept detailed records of patients’ care and treatment. Records were clear, up-to-date and easily available to all staff providing care.

• Staff were caring, kind and engaged well with patients.

• Services were planned in a way that met the needs of patients and the local community. Patients were offered a choice of appointments.

• Incidents were reported, investigated and learning was implemented.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it must take some actions to comply with the regulations and that it should make other improvements. We also issued the provider with four requirement notices that affected diagnostic and screening procedures. Details are at the end of the report.

Amanda Stanford

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (Central)

We were not able to speak with all of the people attending for their appointment on the day of the inspection. This was because we did not want to delay people in having their scans.

When we arrived to complete the inspection we saw that people were waiting for their individual appointments. One person agreed to speak with us and said that they understood the procedure before attending for their scan. This person also said that they were fully informed by their doctor why they needed a scan and had agreed to the procedure.

We observed staff being patient with people by giving them time to be in a comfortable position and explaining what happens during the scanning procedure. A person told us that they were made to feel more relaxed by the staff who they said were friendly and the music helped as the scanner was very noisy.

During the inspection we observed that there was enough staff to ensure people were able to have their scans on the day. We were told by one person using the service that they did not have to wait long.

All the staff carrying out the scanning procedure were radiographers and trained to operate the equipment needed to produce the body images needed. This meant that doctors were helped to make a diagnosis of people’s medical conditions so that people could be treated appropriately to meet their health needs.

Patients we spoke with felt that the service they had received was very good. They told us that they had not waited long for an appointment and that the staff were friendly and pleasant. They told us that they felt their privacy and dignity was maintained during their time in the Centre.

They told us that the staff were friendly and polite and put them at ease. They also said that the staff explained the procedure and what would happen throughout the scan.