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COVID-19 Pregnancy: Essential Antenatal Scans during Coronavirus outbreak

As of Monday 6th April, we are only offering appointments starting from May 4th onwards as an important safety phase in our COVID-19 strategy. Only essential antenatal services, women’s health and first-line general imaging will be available.

We urge you to observe Government instructions and do not travel for 4D, Gender and so-called wellbeing scans. These are not essential services. 

Protecting you and our staff as a responsible provider

We’ve timed our 28-day recess in bookings to coincide with the anticipated peak of the coronavirus. We hope that doing so will ensure as few clients are impacted as possible. Our highest priority is helping both you and our clinic staff to stay safe during this expected phase of the pandemic.

We will of course continue to monitor trusted advice sources and will start scanning sooner if it is safe to do so.

We are truly sorry if this gap in appointments affects you personally. Ultrasound scans and blood tests require close, sometimes intimate contact between practitioner and client, so please understand we’ve taken this difficult decision because of the heightened threat of transmission during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Our phone and email channels remain fully open if you need to contact us.
COVID-19 Pregnancy - ultrasound scans we can offer during COVID-19 breakout
What are essential antenatal scans?


If you would like to know the sex of your baby we will attempt to do this for you free of charge with any of the essential scans, provided you are at least 16 weeks at your appointment. Do not book an essential scan solely to find out the gender of your baby.

If you would like a quick view of your baby in 4D we will attempt to do this for you free of charge with any of the essential scans, provided you are at least 12 weeks at your appointment. Do not book an essential scan solely to see your baby in 4D.

Many NHS hospitals offer 2 antenatal scans at around 12 weeks and 20 weeks. Therefore, to help with affordability during the COVID-19 outbreak we will offer a £50 reduction on the price of our Anomaly Scan when booked in clinic following a normal outcome from one of our services at around 12 weeks.
Coronavirus and Pregnancy guidance

Coronavirus (COVID-19) and Pregnancy – the latest guidance

With the evolving situation, we understand some of you may be worried about the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), the advice on which we are taking very seriously.

While there is currently no scientific evidence to suggest an additional risk to your pregnancy from COVID-19, we will continue to maintain increased and stringent cleaning processes throughout all our clinic locations, ensuring you are not put at any additional risk by attending your appointment.

Our NHS antenatal equivalent type services

NHS direct access community ultrasound

For NHS healthcare professionals only: We are continuing to provide direct access community ultrasound to the NHS for non-obstetrics during the pandemic and, in some areas, we have further capacity to deliver antenatal scans and combined blood tests. Our key attributes include:

  • Availability staffed by fully qualified healthcare professionals
  • Private clinics easily accessible by car helping to avoid crowds and practice social distancing
  • Fully compliant electronic healthcare records from booking through to image and report delivery
  • CQC regulated clinics rated GOOD operating to the highest possible hygiene standards

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you require urgent, short term support in providing local antenatal services. Please note, we can only deal with enquiries from NHS email.
How are we dealing with Coronavirus

How we are dealing with Coronavirus

Ultrasound Direct is taking the current dangers of Coronavirus (COVID-19) very seriously and have increased health and safety measures across all our clinics to help protect clients and staff. These include:

  • No guests in clinic during appointments – images, clips and reports are sent to devices immediately via Ultrasound Direct toMOBILE free of charge
  • Handwashing facilities for all clients and staff, and alcohol hand sanitiser where available
  • Providing staff with Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) 
  • Wider spacing of chairs in the waiting rooms 
  • Increased cleaning schedules 
  • Complete cleaning of all clinical areas between scan appointments

It is our aim to keep as many ultrasound clinics open as possible through these tough times as we understand the services Ultrasound Direct offers are an important part of your healthcare. Should a clinic be closed due to staffing limitations we will endeavour to give as much notice as possible and minimise disruptions to you.