Darren Hudson

What is your current role?

I’m the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Clinical Lead at the InHealth Group – an independent sector provider of diagnostic and healthcare solutions. We primarily deliver services to support the NHS, as well as private healthcare providers, across a range of service delivery models, including mobile units and hospital and community-based locations. In the past year the organisation has provided a test, scan or treatment to more than three million patients from over 850 locations across the UK.

My role is part of the clinical quality team reporting into the director of clinical quality. I provide centralised support to our 300+ MRI radiographers, operational teams and over 100 scanners to help ensure our services are safe and effective and offer a positive experience. I also provide wider clinical governance support as part of the team, beyond my specialty.

My primary purpose is to provide subject matter expertise that helps inform a strategic view across the modality. This draws on a background of clinical knowledge, as I have worked in MRI for over 20 years, to support service delivery, improvement and implementation of evidence-based practice. I also provide professional leadership for the many radiographers working within the modality.

The biggest component of my role is in providing consultancy on all matters relating to quality and governance across the modality. This includes providing advice on matters of MR safety, investigation of incidents and complaints, triage and report guidance, modality specific policies, procedures and patient involvement.

Another significant part of my role is developing and delivering training within MRI, particularly to those new to the modality, as well as the overall staff performance and competency structure. Over the past four years I have worked with a higher education institute to establish an in-house route to attainment of a postgraduate certificate for staff. The training programmes we provide internally are either approved by the College of Radiographers (CoR) or endorsed by CoR’s CPD Now so that we can evidence that their content meets professional requirements. More recently I have been involved in the introduction of apprenticeship roles within the organisation.

Since being in the role I have been fortunate to be able to pursue various small-scale projects to support and showcase different aspects of improvement across the business. Many of these have been shared via poster presentation at national conferences. In particular, much of the patient experience work conducted in collaboration with the Patient Experience Network was pivotal in our mobile service being rated outstanding by the Care Quality Commission. Moving forwards in my doctoral studies, I have successfully had several papers published in various peer viewed journals.

How did you develop to reach this position?

I qualified in 2000 with a BSc Hons in diagnostic radiography and went on to complete a Master of Health Science degree in 2004. My master’s was coursework based and, whilst predominantly MRI focused, included aspects of computed tomography (CT), cross-sectional anatomy and quality assurance. Due to self-funding, this was an overseas course without a research dissertation requirement, which at the time was beneficial to balancing work and study but did leave a gap in my research knowledge and application in practice.

I completed a postgraduate certificate in health and social care management in 2011, which I undertook to support my development when working in an operational capacity managing a service and small team of staff. This looked at leadership and management theory, how to manage performance of teams and individuals, and the principles of change management. More recently I completed a postgraduate certificate in clinical education at the local medical school. This provided a great opportunity to learn from medical education, as well as other healthcare professionals, which has informed my own teaching development and that of the training programmes we offer as an organisation. In particular, the training provided an opportunity to reflect on and develop my own teaching skills and look at the principles of providing effective feedback and the different means of assessing performance.

I am currently studying for a doctorate in clinical research to support my foundational skills in research and applying these in my practice to enable effective service evaluation and implementation of evidence-based practice. The taught component of the course has provided a grounding in principles of research and the variety of different methodologies that can be used to address different research questions. As well as this, a module looking at clinical leadership has been really useful in reflecting on my own role as a leader and identifying areas for improvement. I am now in the main thesis stage of my studies, in which I am looking at the use of a virtual reality tool of an MRI experience and its emotional response by patients as a preparatory tool for those with claustrophobia or enhanced scan anxiety. So far through this study I have built confidence in my writing and successfully had papers published in peer review journals.

What support have you found helpful?

I have been fortunate enough to work with some great teams and had the support of some inspiring managers over the course of my career to date. With development of myself and others being one of my core values, this has featured heavily in my career, as demonstrated by the different postgraduate courses I have completed. Whilst these have been supported by employers along the way, this hasn’t always been financially, which perhaps would have been nice to have had and showed more recognition for the development undertaken. I think this is an important aspect to consider when wanting to develop our staff but expecting them to pay and study in their own time; there has to be a compromise so that both parties benefit.

Another thing I would highlight that I have found especially valuable has been the opportunity to complete some psychometric tests as part of my current role. In particular, the organisation used Insights to support its leadership programme across the business, and through the Patient Experience Network I have been able to complete Service Animals also. I have found both incredibly beneficial as a means of understanding both myself and others. While not taking it too seriously, both have really shown me where my strengths are and where I need to develop. They have also given me some useful tools to better communicate and interact with others who may approach things differently. This is worth a mention as it has hugely influenced and underpinned my work style during the past six years.

What do you find most rewarding?

My current role is wide and varied, with no one day being the same. Working in a national role allows me the opportunity to inform and influence practice at a high level across the organisation. I am in an unusual position because I work for the independent sector rather than directly for the NHS, which perhaps affords me different opportunities and challenges. I have been able to develop and shape my role over the past seven years and hope to continue to do so as I complete my doctorate and look for ways to advance my clinical skills beyond scanning.

Do you have any particular advice for others?

With such a split role between governance and training (although I think the two do work in parallel with one another), the role I am in appears unique. The former is perhaps an unrecognised area for radiographers to specialise in, whereas working in the independent sector has offered this opportunity; and who better to support governance in imaging than a radiographer (and we’re lucky our director of clinical quality is a registered radiographer). For those with an interest in this within a traditional trust setting, making contact with local governance leads could be useful, as well as involvement in departmental work towards Quality Standard for Imaging (QSI) accreditation that is embedded in good governance.

As for the latter, training and development should be something for everyone but I guess the main thing is to show this in your daily work through supporting and teaching junior colleagues. Increasingly in operationally pressured and short-staffed departments with short staffing this is becoming a challenge, but for those with a true interest in the development of others it can be a rewarding part of the job that also warrants recognition within the workplace.