Parkway

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

We looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes, based on best available evidence.

We did not rate the effective key question under our old methodology. At this inspection we rated it as good. This meant people’s outcomes were consistently good, and people’s feedback confirmed this.

This service scored 67 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Referrals for ultrasound scans came in different formats depending on the referrer. These were reviewed by a clinician prior to being accepted and triaged to an appropriately competent sonographer for the required scan.

Service users were provided with a contact number if they had queries regarding their appointment, and the service audited their responsiveness to these calls to ensure they met expectations. Service users we spoke with said they felt able to ask questions or raise any concerns to staff, if needed.

Staff were aware of policies to deliver high quality care according to best practice guidelines. However, in sonography clinics the service’s local policies and procedures were stored on portable laptops that were not connected to a central server, meaning that staff could not be sure if the documents they were referring to were the latest versions.

Managers provided new clinical staff with an induction period of supervision, but there was no structured peer review or routine supervision process to ensure continued competency once this induction was completed. This meant there was no process to review or audit new or changing aspects of practice.

This section was partly assessed using findings that apply to the whole Parkway site, which are included in the appropriate section of the surgery report.

While quarterly group meetings had taken place previously for radiographers and sonographers to come together and discuss the service, organisational changes and vacancies in clinical lead roles meant that these meetings hadn’t taken place since February 2024, which was over a year ago.

Staff had effective working relationships with their colleagues and regularly discussed specific concerns or queries amongst themselves informally, in a closed social media group chat. Some staff felt that it could be isolating to work without regular formal group meetings, but staff also felt that advice was easily and quickly accessible from their colleagues by phone.

This section was assessed using findings that are applicable to the whole Parkway site, which are included in the appropriate section of the surgery report.

The service conducted a monthly audit of clinical images from a sample of sonographers, and the results were fed back to each sonographer. A sonographer told us that they appreciated this audit and recognised it as useful tool to maintain their competency and the service’s quality.

In cases where image quality required improvement, managers took prompt action and ensured the individual had further supervised sessions with sign-off from an appropriate member of senior staff before they could work independently again. However, we observed for one member of staff where an issue with image quality had been identified, there was no evidence that a broader retrospective review of the staff member’s clinical images had taken place.

This section was partly assessed using findings that apply to the whole Parkway site, which are included in the appropriate section of the surgery report.

Staff took all practical steps to enable service users to make their own decisions. We observed 3 clinical episodes in which a procedure was fully explained to each person and their consent was sought at each step appropriately. In one instance, someone did not provide consent for observation, and staff ensured the person’s wishes were respected and managed the situation sensitively and appropriately.