BABIES have been lost amid soaring numbers of unsafe high-street clinics offering scans without a trained specialist, leading radiographers have warned.

Currently, anyone with an ultrasound machine can call themselves a sonographer.

But when people perform scans without proper training it can lead to “unsafe” situations for the mother and baby, the Society of Radiographers (SoR) says.

The union is calling for sonographers to have a “protected” job title, which means only those with qualifications and registered with a regulatory body would be able to use the title.

SoR president and a hospital sonographer Katie Thompson said: “When people go for a scan or any kind of diagnostic test, they assume that the person they’re going to see is qualified to do it.”

The Department of Health & Social Care said it will consider the proposals as “the regulation of healthcare professionals is kept under review to ensure patient safety remains paramount.”