Northern Medical Ultrasound

Northern Medical Ultrasound is operated by Northern Medical Ultrasound. The service is based at Barnoldswick, Lancashire and provides musculoskeletal (MSK) diagnostic ultrasound scan services as part of an arrangement with an independent physiotherapy service. The service only offers scans for private fee paying patients of all ages that have been referred by the independent physiotherapy service.

The main service provided by the service is diagnostic imaging. We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology on 29 October 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

This is the first time we have rated this service. We rated safe as good overall.

We found the following areas of good practice:

• The service had enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect patients from abuse, and managed safety well. The service controlled infection risk well. Staff assessed risks to patients, acted on them and kept good care records. The service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them.
• Staff provided good care and treatment. Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information. Key services were available seven days a week.
• Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, took account of their individual needs, and helped them understand their conditions. They provided emotional support to patients, families and carers.
• The service planned care to meet the needs of local people, took account of patients’ individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback. People could access the service when they needed it and did not have to wait too long for treatment.
• Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of patients receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged well with patients to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to improving services continually.

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

• The service did not have a specific record or form for documenting safeguarding concerns.
• Whilst the leaders were able to articulate the vision and strategy verbally, the service did not have a formal documented vision for what it wanted to achieve or a formal strategy to turn it into action.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it should make other 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 (North Region)