9 Harley Street Limited

9 Harley Street is operated by 9 Harley Street Limited. The service provides a range of diagnostic imaging services including computerised tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MR) and ultrasound scanning (USS) to adults and to a very small proportion of children.

The service provides outpatients and diagnostic imaging services only. Our inspection focussed on the regulated activity diagnostic and screening procedures.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. This inspection was unannounced which meant the provider did not know the date of the inspection in advance.

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 rated it as Good overall.

• There were systems to keep people safe. Mandatory training and safeguarding training for both children and adults had been completed by all staff.

• Equipment was maintained and serviced appropriately and there were safeguards to protect people from the risks from radiation.

• We saw that staff had received training to operate scanning equipment safely and there were opportunities for further staff development.

• Staff worked to appropriate guidance. Consent processes were appropriate and staff had received training in the Mental Capacity Act and associated legislation.

• Staff were caring and patients’ privacy and dignity was respected. Feedback from patients was consistently positive.

• Services were planned and delivered in order they met the needs of patients. Adaptations to the environment had been considered and implemented to ensure the clinical setting was appropriate for patients.

• The service managed staffing effectively. Staff with the right skills and experience were deployed appropriately ensuring patients were safe and that their care needs were met.

• When things went wrong, lessons were learnt and changes were implemented to reduce the risk of similar incidents occurring again in the future.

• Risks associated with the delivery of services had been considered with appropriate mitigations in place.

• Staff described a culture of openness and transparency. The leadership team were visible, approachable and responsive.

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

• There were examples when non-registered healthcare professionals were involved in the administration of medicines without the appropriate processes being in place. The provider took immediate action to stop this activity at the time of the inspection.

• The provider was working with consultants to ensure contemporaneous health care records were readily accessible at all times. Improvements were required to ensure all consultants complied with the providers health records policy.

Dr Nigel Acheson

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (London and South)