InHealth MRI - Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Effective – this means we looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence. At our last assessment this key question was not rated. At this assessment this key question has been rated as good. This meant people’s outcomes were consistently good, and people’s feedback confirmed this.

Patients were involved in the assessment of their needs, and staff considered patients’ physical, emotional and communication needs as part of their assessment. Care was based on latest evidence and good practice guidance. Patients’ comfort was observed throughout the procedures. Staff made sure that people understood what was involved in the procedures so that they could give informed consent.

We have not awarded this service a score for Effective.

Find out about when we will not publish a key question score and what we look at when we assess Effective.

The provider made sure people’s care and treatment was effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them.

Staff assessed patients’ needs. Scans were planned and delivered in line with evidence-based guidance, standards and best practice.

The service had an MRI operational procedure and local safety rules, which were in date. The service had local MRI protocols, which had been approved for different pathways, and were all in-date. We reviewed 4 of these on-site.

Staff assisted patients into comfortable positions for imaging wherever possible, and we observed this on-site. Patients were offered eye masks, knee pads, other support pads, ear buds and headphones with music according to preference.

The provider planned and delivered people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. Staff did this in line with legislation and current evidence-based good practice and standards.

Staff followed up-to-date policies to plan and deliver high-quality care according to best practice and national guidance. We reviewed several policies which all contained clear references to current national guidelines and were reviewed appropriately.

The service did not report to the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) intelligence database, however, they did have their own reporting system. This system was compliant with Learning from Patient Safety Events (LFPSE) reporting, which is the system that the NHS uses to report safety events.

The provider worked well across teams and services to support people. They made sure people only needed to tell their story once by sharing their assessment of needs when people moved between different services.

Radiographers, radiologists and other professionals worked together as a team to benefit patients. They supported each other to provide good care.

Staff reported healthy working relationships across staff groups. We saw and heard examples of effective team working which was based on mutual respect and trust. For example, junior staff were paired with senior staff during specialised scanning lists so that junior staff could gain more experience.

Radiography staff worked closely with referrers and radiologists to enable patients to have a prompt diagnosis and treatment pathway. If they identified concerns from scans, they escalated them to the referrer. We saw escalation pathways for both normal working hours and out-of-hours shifts. This ensured staff could share necessary information about the patients and provide holistic care.

The evidence showed a good standard. The service supported people to manage their health and wellbeing to maximise their independence, choice and control. The service supported people to live healthier lives and where possible, reduced their future needs for care and support.

The nature of the service meant that scans were often carried out urgently for patients who were very unwell. Staff did have access to a range of patient information resources available in large print, different languages and braille that could be given to patients. At the time of our assessment we did not see these being offered to people.

We did see posters on the service notice board with information about sepsis and meningitis, as well as safeguarding support. We did not see any patient information leaflets in the department relating to health promotion.

The provider monitored people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. Staff ensured outcomes were positive and consistent, and they met both clinical expectations and the expectations of patients themselves.

Staff monitored the effectiveness of care and treatment through audit and benchmarking to compare with other similar services. We saw audits of clinical records, and medicines audits which showed consistently good practice in record keeping. We also saw spreadsheets that compared waiting times of the service to those of other sites and staff told us that this allowed them to work with other sites to make sure that patients needing urgent scans were offered appointments at the site with the soonest appointment if appropriate.

The provider considered health inequalities and took steps to ensure that outcomes across people with protected characteristics were in line with the wider community. They did this by closely monitoring patient feedback.

The provider told people about their rights around consent and respected these when delivering person-centred care and treatment.

Staff supported patients to make informed decisions about their care and treatment. They followed national guidance to gain patients’ consent. Staff told us that consent was obtained by the referring clinician as part of the referral process, but we also observed staff explaining the procedure, verifying safety checklists and asking for consent before the scan was performed.

Staff understood how and when to assess whether a patient had the capacity to make decisions about their care and followed the service’s consent policy, which was up to date. All staff received training in the Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards and knew where to access current policies. Any identified capacity issues were followed up with the referring clinician immediately, to ensure all patients, or their advocates where proxy consent was in place, fully understood all scans undertaken. On 2 occasions, where consent could not be obtained, we observed that patients were returned to the ward to be rebooked.

Where specific requests were made by patients for a same-sex health care professional, this was provided whenever possible. Patients were able to request a chaperone, and we saw posters in the department informing patients about how to request a chaperone if required.

Interpreters could be used to assist patients to give informed consent when needed.