Lakeside Medical Diagnostics

Updated 11 February 2019

Lakeside Medical Diagnostics is operated by Lakeside Medical Diagnostics Limited. The service opened in 2012. It is a diagnostic service located in Purfleet, Essex. The service primarily serves the communities of South Essex through referral from approximately 25 local GP practices.

The hospital has had a registered manager in post since January 2012.

We carried out an unannounced inspection of the service on 3 December 2018. The service had previously been inspected in August 2013 where it was non-compliant with regulations in three areas. In March 2013, the service was compliant with all regulations.

Updated 11 February 2019

Lakeside Medical Diagnostics is operated by Lakeside Medical Diagnostics Limited. The service has one ultrasound scanning room, an office and a waiting area shared with patients who use other facilities located at the site.

The service has one registered location with additional services provided from three satellite clinics held at NHS community facilities based in Billericay and Waltham Cross.

The service provides diagnostic imaging through the use of ultrasound imaging to NHS patients aged 16 years and over. Modes of ultrasound scanning included but were not limited to; musculoskeletal, upper abdominal ultrasound, urinary tract renal ultrasound, scrotal, transvaginal and vascular ultrasound. We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out an unannounced inspection on 3 December 2018.

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 only service provided was diagnostic imaging.

Services we rate

Our rating of this service was Requires improvement overall.

We found the following issues that the service provider needs to improve;

• There was a lack of effective systems in place to oversee the governance process.

• There were no effective processes in place to oversee the servicing of ultrasound equipment.

• Equipment maintenance and service records were unorganised. Servicing records where illegible in places.

• We found inconsistencies in the consent process, seven out of the 18 medical care records reviewed did not have written consent.

• We could not gain assurance that risks within the service were regularly reviewed and managed owned by staff.

However, we found good practice in relation to:

• The dedicated clinical room used for the patient scanning was clean, tidy and contained the appropriate resources which were stored correctly.

• Appointments were scheduled to meet the needs and demands of the patients who required these services.

• Staff interactions with patients were supportive and professional.

• The service had direct access to electronic information held by community services, including GPs. This meant that hospital staff could access up-to-date information about patients, for example, details of their current medicine.

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 to help the service improve. We also issued the provider with one requirement notice that affected diagnostic and screening services. Details are at the end of the report.

Amanda Stanford

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals.

Updated 11 February 2019

Lakeside Medical Diagnostics is operated by Lakeside Medical Diagnostics Limited. The service provides diagnostic imaging services (ultrasound scans) to the local communities in and around the Essex area.

The service is registered to provide diagnostic imaging (ultrasound scans) to patients aged 16 years and above.

We rated this core service as requires improvement overall because; -

There was a lack of effective systems in place to oversee the governance process.

There were no effective processes in place to ensure that equipment was maintained and serviced in line with manufacturer recommendations.

There was an inconsistent approach to ensuring that consent was in line with the consent policy.

There were not effective processes in place to identify and monitor risk.