Window To the Womb - Worthing

Updated 4 September 2019

Window to the Womb is operated by Sussex Baby Scans Ltd. The service opened in 2015. It is a private service, . The service operates under a franchise agreement with Window to the Womb (Franchise) Ltd. The service is an independent healthcare provider offering antenatal ultrasound imaging and diagnostic services to self-funding or private patients aged over 16 years of age. The hospital primarily serves the communities of West and East Sussex. It also accepts patient referrals from outside this area.

The hospital has had a registered manager in post since 2015 when the service opened. This is the services first inspection since registering with the CQC.

Updated 4 September 2019

Window to the Womb is operated by Sussex Baby Scans Ltd. The service provides a baby scanning service which includes early pregnancy scans and gender scans. We inspected diagnostic imaging.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out an announced inspection on 10 July 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. At this inspection we rated the service as Outstanding overall.

• We saw extensive positive feedback from women who had used the service; including from women who had received difficult news, and those who had previously experienced pregnancy loss.

• Staff were observed treating patients with dignity, kindness, compassion, courtesy and respect before during and after their scans.

• Leaders strived to deliver and motivated staff to succeed; personal and professional staff development was positively encouraged and there was a deeply embedded system of leadership development and succession planning.

• The service had the right staff with the right qualifications to undertake a safe service for women and their families. Staff understood their responsibilities to protect patients from abuse and there were systems to ensure concerns could be raised.

• Equipment and the environment were clean, well maintained and accessible to all. The service recently re organised the reception and “print” room to enable a better flow of customers and provide a space that could be used as a quiet room if needed.

• As part of giving consent, women had to declare that they were receiving appropriate antenatal care from an NHS provider. When booking their appointment, women were advised to bring their NHS pregnancy records with them to their appointment for reference.

• There was an effective audit programme that provided assurance about the quality and safety of the service. Clinical and local compliance audits were undertaken regularly

However, we told the service they should continue to ensure that the keep records of any referrals in patient records that they hold at the location.

Nigel Acheson

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (South-East)

Updated 4 September 2019

Diagnostic imaging was the only activity the service provided. We rated this service as outstanding because it was safe and responsive and showed outstanding characteristics in both caring and well-led. We do not rate the key question of effective.