High street clinics offering pregnancy scans could be putting unborn babies and their mothers in danger through a lack of properly trained staff, UK experts have warned.<\/p>\n
According to the Society for Radiographers (SoR), high street clinics have seen a huge growth in numbers. However, hospital specialists say they have seen cases of missed health problems, misdiagnosed conditions, and situations in which women were erroneously told their babies were malformed or had died.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a lady referred for a potential miscarriage from a clinic and when I scanned her they\u2019d measured a bleed in the womb and they completely missed a very early pregnancy sac with a baby inside it,\u201d said Katie Thompson, a hospital sonographer and president of the SoR.<\/p>\n
\u201cPotentially, if they were at a private clinic that could offer a miscarriage service, then they could have been given some medication to bring on a miscarriage on a pregnancy that was actually not miscarrying,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The SoR says it has also seen cases in which private clinics have wrongly told women they have an ectopic pregnancy \u2013 a potentially life-threatening condition \u2013 or conversely missed an ectopic pregnancy, while they have also misdiagnosed problems with the cervix and missed abnormalities in babies that should have been picked up.<\/p>\n
Elaine Brooks, a former hospital sonographer and Midlands regional officer for the SoR, said some people attended their 20-week hospital scan after having had a private \u201csexing\u201d scan a week or two before.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then they come for their NHS scan and there\u2019s quite a large abnormality that should have been picked up \u2013 something like spina bifida, polycystic kidneys or fluid-filled ventricles in the head \u2013 things that you wouldn\u2019t expect to have developed in a week,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The revelations come amid calls from the SoR for sonographers to have a \u201cprotected\u201d job title \u2013 meaning it can be used only by qualified practitioners registered with a regulatory body. This is already the case<\/a> for titles such as radiographer, dietician and speech and language therapist.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the moment, absolutely anybody can go and buy an ultrasound machine and set up a practice without any qualifications whatsoever. And that has happened,\u201d said Thompson. \u201cThere has been somebody that bought a machine and started scanning in her front room because after having a baby, she thought it\u2019d be a nice thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Thompson said it was also possible for people who had been struck off a professional register to offer ultrasound scans in a private setting.<\/p>\n