'Private scans missed my son's brain abnormalities'

Mum-of-three, Charlotte, said her son's brain abnormalities were missed by private sonographers

A mother from Surrey is warning pregnant women not to rely solely on private maternity clinic scans after her son was born with severe brain problems.

Lucas, now five, has cerebral palsy, epilepsy, visual impairments and a number of other conditions, which his mother, Charlotte, said were not detected in scans she had at a private clinic.

The mother-of-three, from Camberley, said: "I believed the wellbeing scans were comprehensive, that anything the NHS scans would find would be picked up by them too. But that isn't the case."

Sonography is not legally regulated but sonographers can voluntarily join an industry register, meaning patients can check if they meet professional standards.

Charlotte had 20-week and 30-week scans at a private clinic before Lucas was born in March 2020.

She became concerned when he struggled to feed and arranged for a postnatal ultrasound to be carried out on the NHS.

It found Lucas had been born with a large cleft in his cerebral cortex.

"The doctor was visibly shocked when he looked at the scan," Charlotte said.

Lucas has several life-limiting conditions

Charlotte said the private sonographers did not ask about her NHS scans, or make it clear that she still needed to go to those appointments.

"I thought they were a suitable replacement," she said.

Charlotte hopes other parents will learn from her experience.

"I don't want any other parents to experience what I've been through. It all came as a complete shock to me," she said.

'Families deserve safeguards'

Amy Heath, medical negligence partner at law firm Stewarts, said she was seeing a growing number of cases where private maternity scans had failed to detect abnormalities.

She said: "There is a dangerous misconception that private healthcare is safer or more thorough than NHS services.

"Families should be able to trust that they are receiving quality care. They deserve transparency and proper safeguards."

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said it was committed to ensuring there was appropriate regulation for all health and social care professionals.

"The regulation of healthcare professionals is kept under review to ensure patient safety remains paramount [and] we will carefully consider any proposals from professional bodies regarding this," they said.