Private ultrasound service breached legal regulations

The health watchdog has raised concerns about the care of a private service providing ultrasound and fertility scans to women.

Baby Moments, in Didcot, Oxfordshire, has been told by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) that it requires improvement.

A report into the service, predominantly used by women across Oxfordshire and Berkshire, found it breached four legal regulations relating to safeguarding, infection prevention, managing risk and governance.

Baby Moments has been contacted by the BBC for a comment on the report's findings.

In its report, the CQC said the service "did not conduct clinical risk assessments", that staff "did not always know what to do" in safeguarding situations, and that it "did not always assess or manage the risk of infection".

It also said the service "did not always have good governance" and "did not always act on the best information about risk, performance and outcomes".

Baby Moments provides pregnancy ultrasound, gynaecological and fertility scans, as well as non-invasive prenatal testing the CQC said.

All ultrasound scans performed by the service are in addition to those provided to pregnant women on the NHS.

As well as the criticism, the CQC report said it "always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity".

"The service made sure people were at the centre of their care," it said.

It added that patients were "positive about the quality of their care", saying they received "high quality care from knowledgeable staff who treated them as individuals".

The service had also been deemed to require improvement following a previous CQC inspection in 2019.

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