Medserena Upright MRI Centre is operated by Medserena Upright MRI LTD.

Medserena Upright MRI Centre is in Manchester. It was opened in November 2017 and provides upright magnetic resonance imaging scans to adults and children over 12 years old. The service is located on the ground floor and facilities include one magnetic resonance imaging scanner, two changing areas, a waiting area and two consulting rooms.

We inspected the service in Manchester using our new phase inspection methodology. We carried out an unannounced part of the inspection on 8 August 2018, along with an announced visit on 15 August 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.

This is the first time we have inspected Medserena Upright MRI Centre, Manchester, therefore we have not previously rated this service. We rated it as requires Improvement overall.

We found areas of practice that require improvement:

• The service was not able to demonstrate that there was a robust recruitment process to ensure staff employed were ‘fit and proper’ for their role.
• The service did not have systems in place to document and demonstrate risks had been identified, and that actions were taken to mitigate risk or monitored.
• Policies and procedures were not robust and did not always reflect current guidance.
• There was no evidence of an effective process in assessing, monitoring and improving the service.
• Not all staff received mandatory training.
• Records were not stored securely.

We also found the following areas of good practice:

• The service had suitable premises and equipment that were maintained and well looked after.
• Staff assessed and responded to patient risk.
• The service planned and offered services in a way that met the needs of the local people.
• Staff treated patients with care and compassion.

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 notices. Details are at the end of the report.

Ellen Armistead

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (North)