Ultrasound Direct: Experience for the Provision of Community Based Diagnostic Ultrasound Services since 1998.

The following information is intended for commissioning professionals as a background to Ultrasound Direct when considering us under the Any Qualified Provider (AQP) scheme.

Headquartered in Uppingham, Rutland, Ultrasound Direct is the UK’s largest network of Sonographers delivering private diagnostic ultrasound services and is located in both private health and NHS clinic community settings.

Ultrasound Direct was founded and is still run today by two diagnostic ultrasound imaging industry experts who have, since the late 1970’s, gained extensive experience in both service provision and business development for general imaging, women’s health, obstetric, vascular and MSK ultrasound applications.

The company vision remains the same as it did in 1998; to make ultrasound imaging more accessible in the community whilst providing a level of service quality that meets or exceeds current professional guidelines. In realising this, the company continues to innovate and successfully operate key processes from its platform for direct access to diagnostic ultrasound for both private (B2C) and NHS contract (B2B) customers:
  • Online HR management systems to maintain compliance on up to date UK employment law requirements for a scalable health care professional workforce.
  • Investment into specialist professional courses for the relevant health care employees for Continuous Professional Development (CPD).
  • External Quality Assurance audit. Long before Care Quality Commission (CQC) registration became mandatory for ultrasound service providers, the company invested in ISO 9001 quality assurance registration. As a voluntary move, this raised the bar to help differentiate between UK ultrasound service providers and made the company’s subsequent transition to CQC registration, attained in October 2010, a straightforward process.
  • A bespoke online booking and capacity management system that provides both optimum patient choice and a clear distinction between NHS and private patients. A full audit trail for bookings and precise control over service availability for each health care professional is maintained at all times. Patient Identifiable Data (PID) for private and NHS patients remain on completely separate systems. Private clients can make appointments themselves on either a medically referred or self-referred basis through our fully compliant eCommerce based choose and book website. When NHS spine connectivity is required for GP referral through choose and book, ultrasound direct operates through select partners on a sub-contract basis and our field staff are comfortable using recognised clinical management software such as SystmOne. This means that sensitive, Patient Identifiable Data (PID) is not only managed correctly at all times, but only the relevant employees within our organisation have the necessary access and user rights.
  • Online clinical framework. A large area of investment for the company has been its bespoke web based clinical ultrasound management software. This enables a recognised process framework from the initial point of booking through to areas such as scan outcome reporting, maintaining scanning protocols and professional guidelines, internal and external QA programs and clinic list management. Regional offices manage all of the clinical framework and HR functions securely over a wide geographical area across the UK.
  • High-end portable ultrasound imaging systems have been used by us since 2006 and have been directly sourced from GE Healthcare. This has created the most flexible capacity network in the UK with our systems able to be deployed quickly into NHS community health care settings. Our system specifications enable us to securely export scan reports “on site” at the end of each clinic in a variety of accepted formats including DICOM.
Ultrasound Direct currently scans over 35,000 private clients a year across its 60+ active UK clinics, of which 94% are Obstetric and 6% Women’s and Men’s Health. In January 2011, we deployed our first NHS service in the North and South of Tyne as a sub contractor to a local physiotherapy provider under the Clinical Assessment & Treatment Services (CATS) initiative.

Today, Ultrasound Direct employs in excess of 160 ultrasound imaging health care professionals on full, part-time and session based employment contracts and in addition sub contracts to a small number of agency staff. The majority of these individuals are Radiography trained Sonographers who are qualified to provide multiple ultrasound imaging applications and who split their time between private and NHS work.
This provides our Sonographers with a good balance of job satisfaction and ease of maintaining Continual Professional Development (CPD) whilst delivering excellent patient care in varied settings.

With this type of flexible staff resource, our unique platform is easily scalable and individual health care staff can maintain their important, local professional links.
This in turn benefits patients directly when our health care professionals are required to communicate with other organisations as a part of the care pathway in the local area.

If you would like to know more, please do not hesitate to contact us through our health care professional contact form.

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