Background to this inspection
Updated
19 February 2020
The Leeds Upright MRI Centre is located at Tower Court, accessed from Armley Road which is a shared set of offices with
two
other companies based in an old school house.
The service is
located on the ground floor
with
ample parking to the front of the building
. The service was accessible
via
intercom access and ha
d
a large waiting room with disabled access
toilet facilities
. In the waiting area
wa
s a small kitchenette accessed by staff only and
an
i
maging services managers office.
There were
two changing rooms accessed via reception leading to the sub-
waiting area, which ha
d
another disabled toilet. To the rear of
the building was a
staff room
and a
server room
which housed the
single 0.5 Tesla Open and Upright MRI scanner.
The service opened in September 2012 as a single modality Upright and Open Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) diagnostic centre service for NHS and self-funded
service users
. A new self-referral service launched at the end of November 2018
.
Since
the
last inspection
the service
now accept
s
service user
self-referrals
, allowing
service users
to take greater control of their own health. This service is regularly reviewed and modified to better serve the needs of the user.
The
service
has
recent
ly amended regulated activities
(October 2019)
to
treat
children
eight
years and over
.
A local statement of purpose
was available.
The service
ha
d
direct
general practitioner (
GP
)
referral pathways with some local
Clinical Commissioning Groups (
CCGs
)
, under which
the service can
commission activity on their behalf if the
service user
meets certain agreed criteria.
The service is registered with
the care quality commission
to provide diagnostic and screening procedures
to adults and children over eight years of age
.
The clinic’s registered manager
ha
d
been in post since
May
201
9
Updated
19 February 2020
The Leeds Upright MRI Centre
is operated by
InHealth Group
.
The Leeds Upright MRI Centre opened in September 2012 following the success of the London Upright MRI Centre which opened in 2006, with the aim to provide the same
high-quality
services to the people of North England and beyond.
The centre houses the first
P
aramed MROpen scanner installed in the
United Kingdom
, and at the time of opening was only the
fifth
to be installed worldwide. The scanner is also the only
u
pright magnet in
North
Yorkshire and is the furthest north in the UK.
Magnetic resonance imaging is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body in both health and disease. Magnetic resonance imaging scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio waves to generate images of the organs in the body.
The scanner is specifically designed to assist those who may not be able to tolerate a conventional
magnetic resonance
imaging (
MRI
)
scan for a variety of reasons;
-
Claustrophobia
or
severe anxiety
-
High
body mass index (
BMI
)
or broad shoulder width
-
Unable to lay flat for a variety of reasons
The aim of the centre is to provide a diagnostic pathway for those
service users
whose care pathways would
not be possible
through lack of an MRI scan, because they are not able to tolerate the confines of a standard configuration magnet.
The registered manager has developed the scanner alongside the manufacturer since its installation, including sequence development and
service user
positioning, and the team is experienced in assisting anxious
service users.
In February 2019 United Open MRI Ltd was purchased by InHealth Group
.
We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology.
We carried out a short notice announced inspection on the 12 November 2019.
To get to the heart of
service user
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.
During the inspection we spoke with
four
staff,
four service users
and one relative. We reviewed 10 sets of
service user
notes, five consent forms
and
reviewed four staff files
.
Services we rate
Our rating of this hospital/service
stayed the same
.
We rated
it
as
Good
overall.
We found good practice in relation to:
-
The service provided mandatory training in key skills to all staff and made sure everyone completed it.
-
Staff understood how to protect
service users
from abuse and when to contact other agencies to do so.
-
The service had suitable premises and equipment and looked after them well.
-
Staff completed risk assessments for each
service user.
-
The service had enough staff with the right qualifications, skills, training and experience to keep people safe from avoidable harm and to provide the right care and treatment
-
The service provided care and treatment based on national guidance and evidence of its effectiveness, monitored the effectiveness of care and treatment and used the findings to improve them.
-
The service made sure staff were competent for their roles and staff worked together as a team to benefit
service users
.
-
Staff understood their roles and responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and in relation to informed consent.
-
Staff cared for
service users
with compassion and provided emotional support to
service users
to minimise their distress. Feedback from
service users
confirmed that staff treated them well and with kindness.
-
Staff involved
service users
and those close to them in decisions about their care and treatment.
-
The service planned and provided services in a way that met the needs of local people.
-
The service took account of
service users
individual needs and people could access the service when they needed it.
-
The service investigated incidents and complaints, learned lessons from the results, and shared these with all staff.
-
The service had a vision for what it wanted to achieve and workable plans to turn it into action.
-
Managers across the service promoted a positive culture that supported and valued staff, creating a sense of common purpose based on shared values.
-
The service collected, analysed, managed and used information well to support its activities, using secure electronic systems with security safeguards.
-
The service engaged well with
service users
, staff, the public and local organisations to plan and manage appropriate
services and
collaborated with partner organisations effectively.
-
The service was committed to improving services.
However, we also found the following issues that the service provider needs to improve:
-
The service did not adhere to standard labelling of equipment in line with
MHRA
best practice
for example; MR safe, MR unsafe and MR conditional
. We found fire extinguishers stored outside the MRI scan room were labelled with manufacturer non specific labelling.
-
The service did not adhere to MHRA best practice following contractual servicing of machinery, fault repair or physics quality assurance (QA) checks. The service did not use staff hand over forms following servicing and or repair of machinery to evidence quality assurance.
Following this inspection, we told the provider that it should make some improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. Details are at the end of the report.
Ann Ford
Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals
Updated
19 February 2020
We rated this service as good overall with ratings of good for safe, caring, responsive and well-led. CQC does not rate effective for diagnostic imaging services. There were areas of good practice and a small number of things the provider
must
do to improve. Details are at the end of the report.