NHS Primary Care & PCNs
Community Echocardiography for Primary Care
Echocardiography is one of the standard diagnostic tests where demand has grown faster than capacity, and the consequence is felt in primary care.
We provide community adult transthoracic echocardiography delivered within primary care, to the same standard as a hospital department, in your own practice or another agreed community site.
What this changes for your population
✦Shorter Wait Times
Community delivery brings the investigation closer to the patient and forward in the pathway.
✦Fewer Secondary Care Referrals
Where the echo answers the question, the hospital visit never needs to happen.
✦Better Attendance
Among patients who struggle to reach a hospital site, a local session simply gets done.
✦Faster Decisions
Management stays with the clinician who knows the patient.
What we provide
Cardiac ultrasound equipment and an accredited workforce for agreed sessions. Acquisition and reporting to the British Society of Echocardiography minimum dataset, by a practitioner accredited by the BSE and the European Association of Cardio-Vascular Imaging who assesses and examines for both bodies.
Image storage and transfer arranged with the commissioning organisation. Participation in your audit, quality assurance and incident reporting processes, with activity and turnaround reporting against agreed KPIs.
What stays with you
Referral triage and vetting, clinical responsibility for onward management, the patient record, and the registration under which the activity is delivered — unless otherwise agreed in writing.
Quality and governance
Community echocardiography only reduces secondary care demand if the report can be relied upon. A study that gets repeated at the hospital has cost the system twice.
Every study is acquired and reported by the same accredited practitioner, so there is no separation of scanning from reporting and no inter-operator variability across your cohort. Studies are acquired to a defined minimum dataset, with image quality and completeness auditable.
Reports are written in a structured format agreed with you, with clear conclusions rather than lists of measurements. Escalation criteria define which findings trigger same-day contact, which trigger routine referral, and which need no action. We will submit a sample of studies for external peer review at your request.
Discuss Capacity
Tell us about your community.
Share your practice or PCN details, approximate patient volumes and preferred session pattern, and we will respond within one working day.
Please do not include any patient-identifiable information in this form.
Work With CVI
Discuss a diagnostic service.
Private practice, PCN or research team — send us a message and our clinical team will respond within one working day.
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