InHealth has become one of the first independent providers in the UK to be awarded an ‘Outstanding’ rating for their mobile and peripatetic services, during a recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection.
This continues our record of all inspected services being rated either ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ by the CQC.
With less than 10% of independent healthcare CQC inspections resulting in ‘Outstanding’, we are incredibly proud of this achievement, especially given the nature of mobile services, with regular change and variation taking place in location and service provision.
Delivered by a team of more than 3,500 staff, our mobile services operate across the UK, from more than 800 locations and cover services including: CT, Interventional Cardiology, MRI, Cardiac MRI, PET-CT, X-ray, DEXA, Ultrasound, Audiology, Breast screening and AAA screening.
The CQC report highlighted the following areas of note, which included achieving ‘Outstanding’ in the areas of ‘caring’ and ‘responsive’ and ‘well-led’ and they are a testament to InHealth’s culture, focus on patient experience and flexibility:
- The nature of the service being provided out of small clinics and mobile units meant the service was very flexible. The focus was on providing patients with a service that meant they had choice as to dates, times and locations of scans
- The culture of the organisation was focused on the patient experience and how to provide outstanding care. We saw numerous examples of staff going ‘above and beyond’
- Staff working in MRI had completed a large project in conjunction with a patient network group to use the eight C’s of caring; Compassion, Competence, Confidence, Conscience, Commitment, Courage, Culture and Communication to better understand patient anxiety in relation to scans and make changes to practice as a result of these findings
- Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm screening staff provided services at residential and nursing homes to support patients with difficulties getting to a clinic
- Staff worked with learning disability nurses to promote the importance of breast screening for patients with learning disabilities
- The strong culture of improvement and innovation from the managerial team allowed staff to develop their skills and the service to improve.
Along with reviewing paperwork during the inspection visit, the CQC inspectors also spoke directly to patients, relatives, a range of staff members and external health and social care professionals. The inspection found that:
- “Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, took account of their individual needs, and helped them understand their conditions”
- “Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information.”
- “There was a strong, visible person-centred culture. Staff were motivated to offer care that was kind and promotes people’s dignity.”
- “Staff recognised and respected patient’s needs and always took patient’s personal, cultural, social and religious needs into account.”
A huge thank you to everyone who was involved in preparing InHealth for the CQC inspection, as well as every colleague who delivers the services that were inspected. We are delighted that our mobile services continue to deliver much needed care for patients.
