Window to the Womb

Updated 28 May 2019

Window To The Womb is operated by ANA Services Ltd. It is a private ultrasound baby scanning service in Chessington, Surrey. The service primarily serves the communities within South London and Surrey. As part of the agreement, the franchisor Window to the Womb Ltd provides the service with regular on-site support, access to their guidelines, policies, training and the use of their business model and brand.

Window To The Womb was opened in 2014. The service provided diagnostic obstetric ultrasound services for pregnant women from seven weeks gestation to full term. The service operates on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons; and day time and evenings on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The service is registered for the following regulated activities: Diagnostic and screening procedures.

The service has had a registered manager in post since 2014, when it was registered with the Care Quality Commission.

We conducted a short-announced inspection of the service on 17 March 2019.

Updated 28 May 2019

Window To The Womb is operated by ANA Services 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 Chessington and surrounding areas. All Scans carried out include wellbeing as the primary purpose.

The service provides ultrasound baby imaging for pregnant women from the gestation of seven weeks. This includes four dimensional (4D), three dimensional (3D) and two dimensional (2D) early scans starting from 6 week gestation, scans starting from seven to eight weeks as reassurance, gender scans from 16 weeks, baby growth scan from 16 weeks, “baby bonding” scans from 27 weeks and keepsake scans. There were seven members of staff employed by the service.

The service provides diagnostic imaging for adults over the age of 16 years. It is registered to provide the regulated activity of diagnostic and screening procedures.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the short-announced inspection on 17 March 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 rated it as Good overall.

We found the following areas of good practice:

• Staff completed mandatory training and were aware of their responsibilities associated with safeguarding. The staff were competent in their roles and had the appropriate skills and training in safeguarding.

• The environment was appropriate for the procedures completed and infection control measures were in place.

• Clinical records were kept securely and copies were provided to people using the services.

• Care and treatment were evidence-based and provided against national guidance.

• People were treated with compassion; their dignity and privacy were maintained. They were involved in the consultation and provided with emotional support.

• The service accommodated people’s individual needs and provided a responsive service.

• Appointment times were agreed to suit the needs of the people using the service.

• There was a positive culture at the service and they had a vision of what they wanted to achieve.

• The provider engaged well with people to plan and manage the service, and were committed to improving learning.

Name of signatory

Nigel Acheson

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (London)

Updated 28 May 2019

Overall, we rated diagnostic imaging as good.