Archived: Baby Ultrasound Clinic Macclesfield

Updated 1 March 2019

Baby Ultrasound Clinic Macclesfield is a private clinic operated by Baby Ultrasound Clinic Limited. The clinic opened in January 2018 and is based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. It serves the local population but will also accept customers from outside the area. There are two other established clinics in Huddersfield and Bolton, and another clinic is due to open in Chester.

The clinic provides 2D, 3D and 4D scanning, and produces keepsakes including DVDs, photographs and key rings. It carries out approximately 40 to 50 scans per month.

The location is open two days a week: Wednesday (1pm to 8pm) and Saturday (11am to 7pm).

The clinic has had a registered manager in post since it opened in January 2018.

Updated 1 March 2019

Baby Ultrasound Clinic Macclesfield (The clinic) is operated by Baby Ultrasound Clinic Limited. The Clinic provides self-elected, privately funded pregnancy scans including 2D, 3D and 4D keepsake scans and gender scans. All scans are abdominal. The Clinic does not provide diagnostic scans. The Clinic had a scanning room, a waiting/reception area, a kitchen and a toilet. There is also another room available for staff to talk to woman and their families if necessary.

The clinic is based in Macclesfield, and there are three other locations in the North of England.

The clinic provides baby keepsake scans to women. It employed a sonographer and a receptionist at the location, and a manager spent time at the clinic and as well as its three other locations.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the inspection on 12 December 2018. The inspection was unannounced.

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.

The main service provided by this hospital was baby keepsake scanning.

Services we rate

This is the first time we have rated this service. We rated it as Requires improvement overall because:

• We were not assured that the clinic provided mandatory training to staff or that staff were fully engaged with it.

• The clinic did not ensure that staff received appropriate safeguarding training.

• The clinic did not always control infection risk well.

• The clinic had suitable equipment but its premises were not always looked after.

• The clinic did not store patient records securely.

• It was not clear that staff had had appropriate training in the Mental Capacity Act.

• The clinic did not always plan and provide a service that met the needs of local people.

• The clinic did not consistently take account of individual needs.

• The clinic did not operate effective systems or processes to ensure that it kept service users’ records secure.

• Not all the clinic’s policies referenced up to date guidelines.

However, we found that:

• The clinic completed risk assessments for each patient.

• The clinic had a comprehensive incident reporting policy and procedure.

• The clinic provided evidence-based care and treatment.

• Managers monitored the effectiveness of its services.

• Staff were competent for their roles.

• The clinic consent form was appropriate.

• The clinic provided compassionate care, emotional support and involved patients and those close to them in decisions about their care.

• People could access the service when they needed it.

• The clinic investigated complaints and learned lessons from them.

• The manager had the right skills and experience to run the service.

• The clinic had a vision for what it wanted to achieve.

• There was a positive culture in the organisation.

• The clinic had systems to identify risk and reduce them.

• The service engaged with customers effectively and used patient surveys to improve.

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, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. We also issued the provider with two requirement notice(s). Details are at the end of the report.

Ellen Armistead

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (North Region)

Updated 1 March 2019

We rated this service as requires improvement because it did not ensure that its staff were sufficiently trained to protect service users from abuse or harm. It also did not have effective governance systems in place to ensure that patient records were secure.

However, we found that the clinic services were effective, and that it was caring and responsive.