Archived: Window To The Womb

Updated 15 February 2019

Window To The Womb is a private diagnostic service based in Watford, Hertfordshire. It is owned by New Beginnings South Ltd, and operates under a franchise agreement with Window To The Womb (Franchise) Ltd. Window to the Womb (Franchise) Ltd was established in 2003 and now has 36 franchised clinics across the United Kingdom.

As part of the agreement, the franchisor (Window To The Womb Ltd) provides the service with regular on-site support, access to their guidelines and policies, training, and the use of their business model and brand.

Window To The Womb in Watford opened in 2014 and provides diagnostic pregnancy ultrasound services to self-funding women, who are more than six weeks’ gestation and aged 18 years and above. All ultrasound scans performed at Window To The Womb are in addition to those provided through the NHS.

The service is registered with the CQC to undertake the regulated activity of diagnostic and screening procedures. It has had a registered manager in post since registering with the CQC in 2014.

We have not previously inspected this service.

Updated 15 February 2019

Window To The Womb in Watford is owned by New Beginnings South Ltd, and operates under a franchise agreement with Window To The Womb (Franchise) Ltd. The service provides diagnostic pregnancy ultrasound services to self-funding women across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, and Buckinghamshire.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out a short-notice announced inspection on 8 January 2019. We gave staff two working days’ notice that we were coming to inspect to ensure the availability of the registered manager and clinics.

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 inspected this service. At this inspection, we rated the service as good overall.

We found areas of good practice:

• The facilities and premises met the needs of the range of people who accessed the service. This included children who accompanied women to their scans. The service also recognised that women’s preferred method of communication had changed, and as a result, they had developed a range of innovative products to tailor their services and meet the needs of local people.

• The service took a proactive approach to understand women’s individual needs, and delivered care in a way that met these needs, which was accessible and promoted equality.

• Women could access services and appointments in a way and at a time that suited them. Technology was used innovatively to ensure women had timely access to treatment.

• The service treated concerns and complaints extremely seriously. The registered manager completed comprehensive investigations, which frequently involved input from other professionals, such as the lead sonographer. Lessons learned were shared with all staff.

• Staff were caring, kind and engaged well with women and their families.

• Managers promoted a positive culture that supported and valued staff. Staff confirmed they felt respected and valued.

• The service used current evidence-based guidance and good practice standards to inform the delivery of care and treatment. Staff demonstrated a good understanding of the national legislation that affected their practice.

• Window To The Womb had a clear vision and strategy for what they wanted to achieve, with quality and sustainability as the top priorities.

However, we found the following areas of practice that the service needed to improve:

• While most of the governance arrangements were clear and appropriate to the size of the service, there were not effective recruitment processes in place. Managers also did not have full oversight of what training the sonographers had completed at their substantive employer. However, these concerns were addressed immediately after our inspection.

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.

Amanda Stanford

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (Central)

Updated 15 February 2019

The provision of ultrasound scanning services, which is classified under the diagnostic core service, was the only core service provided at Window To The Womb.

We rated the service as good overall because there were processes in place for the escalation of unexpected findings during ultrasound scans. Feedback from women and their families was extremely positive. Women could access services and appointments in a way and at a time that suited them, technology was used innovatively to ensure women had timely access to treatment, and the registered manager had the appropriate skills and experience to manage the business.

However, at the time of our inspection, there were not effective recruitment processes in place, and managers did not have full oversight of what training the sonographers had completed at their substantive employer. This was addressed immediately after our inspection.