Quality Assurance
Clinical Leadership
It is accepted that clinicians can make a unique contribution to the development and ongoing quality improvement of services. InHealth recognises the importance of this unique level of knowledge and understanding and has appointed independent clinical advisors to provide strategic advice, operational guidance and quality assurance.
A number of Advisory Boards have been established with members who are national and international experts in their field.
Our Medical Director has board level responsibility for clinical governance within InHealth and is supported by a number of clinical leads who are responsible for the professional leadership of clinical staff working in MRI, CT, X-Ray, DXA, cardiac (including Echocardiogram), ultrasound, breast screening, audiology and PET-CT/nuclear medicine.
Clinical Governance
Where our patients and employees are concerned, we take no risks. Led by our Medical Director, we have developed a robust clinical governance framework which includes regular external audit of infection control, patient and staff safety, risk management, awareness of and adherence to clinical and corporate policies and procedures. Whilst most of our units are not required to register, and our mobile units are not able to register with the Healthcare Commission under current legislation, our ongoing clinical audit programme is designed to reflect the Commission’s regulatory process and where registrations are required we have obtained registrations.
We carry out a 10% external audit of all services provided to the NHS and a 10% external audit of MRI radiographic quality. We work closely with our medical physics experts and our radiation protection advisors to constantly review and update our process and practices.
Complaints and incidents are always fully investigated using root cause analysis and lessons learned are shared with all staff to ensure that problems do not recur.
Patient Involvement
Patients are key to understanding exactly how well we achieve our objectives. We perform regular patient surveys and measure individual responses. We encourage our clinical staff to seek feedback from patients so they can add this to their continuing professional development portfolios. We learn from our patients’ comments and work hard to constantly improve our staff and our facilities and thus our services to patients and carers.
