Hey Baby 4D Southend

Updated 7 June 2019

Hey Baby 4D Southend is operated by Hey Baby 4D South East Group Limited. The service was newly registered with the Care Quality Commission and opened in September 2018. It is a private ultrasound scanning service in Southend-on-Sea, Essex. The service primarily serves the communities of Southend-on-Sea and surrounding areas for women on a self-referral basis only.

The service offers:

• Early reassurance scanning (from seven – 24 weeks)

• Gender scan (from 16 weeks)

• Growth and wellbeing scan (from 24 – 28 weeks)

• Four-dimensional (4D) scan package (from 24 – 34 weeks)

• Non-invasive prenatal testing blood testing (a blood test to identify various conditions such as Down’s Syndrome, Edward’s and Patau’s Syndromes and gender of the baby).

Appointments include scan findings and images for keepsake purposes. In the event of possible anomaly detection, women are referred to the local NHS early pregnancy assessment unit or maternity service, depending on the stage/gestation of pregnancy. The clinic was open between the hours of 9am to 2pm on Sundays, 4pm to 8pm on Tuesdays, 5pm to 8pm Thursdays and 9am to 2pm on Sundays.

The service has had a registered manager in post since September 2018.

Updated 7 June 2019

Hey Baby 4D Southend is operated by Hey Baby 4D South East Group Limited. The service provides diagnostic imaging for self-referring women through a range of ultrasound scan examinations during pregnancy. Ultrasound scan packages include early reassurance scans (from seven – 24 weeks), gender scans (from 16 weeks), growth and wellbeing scans (from 24 – 38 weeks) and 4D scan packages (from 24 -34 weeks). The service also offers non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPTS, a blood test taken during pregnancy to identify foetal chromosomal anomalies). Facilities include one ultrasound room, a waiting area, reception, staff area and a disabled toilet.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried an initial short notice announced inspection on 26 February 2019, along with an unannounced visit to the service on 7 March 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.

The main service provided was diagnostic and screening procedures.

Services we rate

This was the first time we have rated this service. We rated the service as Good overall.

We found good practice in relation to diagnostic imaging:

• The service used well maintained equipment and premises.

• Feedback was positive.

• Staff were seen to be kind, caring and compassionate.

• The service was located close to public transport and accessible to women and visitors.

• The service was responsive to the needs of the local population offering flexibility in choice for appointment times.

However, we also found areas of practice that require improvement in diagnostic imaging:

• The registered manager had a lack of oversight of mandatory training compliance and staff competencies for sonographers working at the service.

• Cleaning records for clinical and non-clinical areas had not been regularly completed.

• There was a lack of audit programme in place. Therefore, we could not gain assurances that the service was routinely monitored to ensure improvements were made.

• The safeguarding lead for the service had not completed level three safeguarding children training despite the service seeing women aged 16 to 17 years of age. There was no child safeguarding policy in place and the service was not registered to see women of this age.

• Patient confidential information was not always stored in a secure manner.

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 four requirement notice(s) that affected diagnostic imaging. Details are at the end of the report.

Amanda Stanford

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals

Updated 7 June 2019

Hey Baby 4D Southend is operated by Hey Baby 4D South East Group Limited. The service provides diagnostic imaging for self-referring women through a range of ultrasound scan examinations during pregnancy. Ultrasound scan packages include early reassurance scans (from seven – 24 weeks), gender scans (from 16 weeks), growth and wellbeing scans (from 24 – 38 weeks) and 4D scan packages (from 24 -34 weeks). The service also offers non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPTS, a blood test taken during pregnancy to identify foetal chromosomal anomalies). Facilities include one ultrasound room, a waiting area, reception, staff area and a disabled toilet.

In diagnostic imaging, we found areas of good practice including:

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

• The service had adequate staffing in place.

• Staff understood how and when to assess whether a woman had capacity to make decisions about their care.

• Staff cared for women with compassion. Feedback was positive.

• The service mostly took account of individual women’s need.

• People could access the service when they needed it.

However, we found the following areas for improvement:

• There were no processes in place to ensure staff were up to date with mandatory training.

• The safeguarding lead had not completed level three safeguarding adults and children training. There was no specific child safeguarding policy in place.

• There were limited processes in place to ensure staff had the appropriate competencies to carry out their role.

• The registered manager had not identified several risks the service faced.

• There was a lack of managerial oversight in relation to infection prevention and control processes.

• There was a lack of effective processes in place to ensure that all staff had received a disclosure and barring service check.

• Confidential patient information was not always stored in a secure manner.