University of Wolverhampton

Healthscan is operated by University of Wolverhampton. The service is based within the University of Wolverhampton facilities on the Walsall campus.

Facilities include one dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (Dexa) scanning unit which is used for diagnostic imaging. There is a reception, waiting area and two staff offices.

The service provides diagnostic imaging to adults over the age of 18 years of age.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out an unannounced inspection (staff did not know we were coming) on 20 November 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 and cannot therefore compare ratings with the last inspection. We rated it as Requires improvement overall.

We rated it as Requires improvement because:

• Staff did not receive training in the Mental Capacity Act 2005 meaning they may not always be able to recognise, and respond appropriately to, patients who were unable to provide consent to treatment.

• Complaints information was not clearly displayed. This meant that patients may not easily be able to make a complaint as details of the process were not widely available.

• Governance around the service contract and performance was not in place as there was no formal contract agreement , agreed key performance indicators, or contract meetings.

• There was minimal audit happening in the service which gave no assurance for performance or outcomes and no means of identifying any areas for service improvement.

• The service did not routinely document patient’s consent to receiving a scan. Assurance in effective consent processes could not be provided.

However, we found the following areas of good practice:

• We found that the clinical environment was appropriate for the service delivered and was visibly clean. Infection prevention control processes were followed by staff.
• There was good compliance with IR(ME)R 2017 regulations and there were effective local rules to ensure radiation was managed safely.
• The service’s policies and procedures were based on national guidance and evidence-based practice was being delivered.
• The service was able to be responsive to referrals and reported they offered appointments with minimal waits for patients.
• We saw that staff displayed a caring approach and patients provided positive feedback about the service.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it must take some actions to comply with the regulations and that it should make other improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. We also issued the provider with two requirement notices. Details are at the end of the report.

Heidi Smoult

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (Midlands region)