Window to the Womb Aylesbury

Window to the Womb Aylesbury is operated by Baby Scan Clinic 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 Buckinghamshire and wider.

The service provides diagnostic imaging for children over 16 years and adults. 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 announced part of the inspection on 13 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 inspected this service.

We rated it as Good overall.

We found good practice in relation to diagnostic imaging:

• The service had enough staff to care for service users and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect service users from abuse, and managed safety well. The service controlled infection risk well. Staff assessed risks to service users, acted on them and kept good care records. The service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them. Staff collected safety information and used it to improve the service.
• Staff provided good care and treatment and managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of service users and had access to good information.
• Staff treated service users with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, took account of their individual needs, and helped them understand their conditions. They provided exceptional emotional support to service users, families and carers.
• The service planned care to meet the needs of local people 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 understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of service users receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged well with service users and the community to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to improving services continually.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it should make improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. Details are at the end of the report.

Nigel Acheson

Chief Inspector of Hospitals (London and South)