Ashford PET-CT Centre is operated by Alliance Medical Limited. Alliance Medical Limited provides PET-CT Scan Imaging within the grounds of an NHS Trust in the South East of England, through a national contract commissioned by NHS England. The service has previously been delivered using a mobile unit. In August 2015 a static unit was built within the hospital grounds and opened on 15 March 2018.

The service provides a diagnostic imaging service for patients who require a PET CT scan. A PET-CT scan is a combination of aPET (positron emission tomography) scanand aCT (computerised tomography) scan. The PET scan shows how active cells are in different parts of the body using a radioactive injection. The CT scan takes a series of pictures (x-rays) to build this information into 3D pictures of the inside of body. Local governance was monitored through regular meetings with the Administration of Radioactive Substances Advisory Committee (ARSAC) holder (a specialist licensed radiologist) in the NHS Trust. The service was also supported by the NHS Trust Medical Physics Team who provided a Radiation Protection Advisor, a Medical Physics Expert and Radioactive Waste Advisor.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out a short notice announced inspection on 28 February 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.