Hospitals in urgent need of more scanners and staff

Reports have argued that hospital trusts across England urgently need more equipment, staff and space to deal with a huge backlog of scans for cancer and other conditions.

Data shows that more than half of all patients in England referred for imaging diagnostics are waiting for six weeks or more, as more than 600,000 people await CT, MRI and other scans amid the coronavirus crisis. The six week wait figure ballooned from 20,898 in May 2019 to 326,525 in May 2020.

According to the Guardian, NHS trusts detailed the additional equipment needed to deal with the backlog, while NHS providers, which represents trusts, warned that many scanners currently in use were ‘faulty and unreliable, causing delay, disruption and added anxiety for patients’.

Saffron Cordery, the deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said England already lagged behind many other countries in terms of the number of CT scanners in operation. She said hospital bosses had said investment in equipment such as MRI and CT scanners, X-ray machines and ultrasound equipment was an urgent priority.

The Royal College of Radiologists described the equipment shortage and backlog as a ‘perfect storm’.