Archived: Bradford Alliance CT

Bradford Alliance CT is operated by Alliance Medical Limited. It provides Computed Tomography (CT) scanning services for adults only. The centre provides its services under a local contract between Alliance Medical Limited and the Trust.

The unit performs all types of CT scans except for trauma scanning. Cardiac CT and CT colonography (CTC) scans are provided as part of this service. The cardiac scanning service has been in place since the beginning of October 2014. The CTC service commenced in March 2015. The CTC service is a radiographer led service with both scanning and rectal cannulation undertaken by trained radiographers under the supervision of gastro-intestinal consultant radiologists. The radiographer’s responsibilities include injection of contrasts through patient group directions.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology and carried out an unannounced inspection on 11 June 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 good practice in relation to diagnostic and imaging services:

• Managers had the right skills and abilities to run the service and staff described a positive culture where managers, staff and the multi-disciplinary team worked well together. The service ensured staff were competent with the right qualifications, skills, training and experience to keep people safe from avoidable harm and to provide the right care and treatment. Managers appraised staff’s work performance as a means of development.

• The service planned and provided services that met and took account of the individual needs of local people. Care and treatment was based on national guidance and evidence of its effectiveness and managers checked that staff followed this guidance. Patients could access the service when they needed it, appointments were prioritised, and additional cardiac sessions had been put in place so this patient groups scans could take place in a timely way. Waiting times from referral to scan were in line with good practice.

• We found good practice in relation to medicines management, record keeping, infection prevention and control and assessing and responding to patient risk.

• The service had suitable premises and equipment and looked after them well.

• The service collected, analysed, managed and used information well to support all its activities, using secure electronic systems with security safeguards.

• The service systematically improved service quality and safeguarded high standards of care. Patient safety incidents were well managed, and staff recognised incidents and reported them appropriately. Staff of different kinds worked together as a team to benefit patients.

• The service treated concerns and complaints seriously, investigated them, learned lessons from the results, and shared these with all staff.

• The service engaged well with patients, staff, the public and local organisations to plan and manage appropriate services and collaborated with partner organisations effectively.

• Staff cared for patients with compassion, provided emotional support to minimise their distress and involved patients and those close to them in decisions about their care and treatment. Feedback from patients confirmed that staff treated them well and with kindness.

• Staff understood how and when to assess whether a patient had the capacity to make decisions about their care. Policies and procedures were implemented when a patient could not give consent.

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

• The provider should ensure that temperature monitoring of the medicine’s fridge is put in place.

• The provider should ensure that the CT local rules are specific to this service.

• The provider should ensure that local diagnostic reference levels are readily available in the computed tomography (CT) room for immediate reference together with national diagnostic reference levels.

• The provider should ensure that the existing spillage kit which has expired is replaced.

• The provider should ensure that the Trust is informed that its ‘Patient Identification Policy’ is past its review by date of October 2016.

• The provider should ensure that an extravasation policy is in place.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it should make some 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 (Hospitals)