Worrying increase in numbers of patients waiting for scan and x-ray results

Hospitals have recently reported a 130% surge in patients awaiting the results of scans and x-rays in one year, with there being on average 2,800 unreported scans per trust at the end of the 2016-17 year.

The NHS Benchmarking report, which was leaked to the Health Service Journal, also found that two trusts had backlogs of over 30,000 unreported scans.

As well as unreported scans, the Royal College of Radiologists have warned that the true situation could be ‘very much worse, as ‘auto-reporting’ was on the rise due to many radiologists being too busy to review scans.

The term auto-reporting means scans being sent directly to clinicians without being reviewed by the radiologist beforehand.

The Royal College of Radiologist’s Dr Nicola Strickland, said “It is widely known that auto reporting is occurring throughout the whole of the UK because there aren’t enough radiologists to cope with the reporting work but it is difficult to trace [scans] that have not been reviewed by a radiologist.

“[These reports] are generally not officially classed as a backlog. The bottom line was the situation is very much worse than it appears if all those auto reports are not included in the figures.”

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Posted by Karen Motley, Paralegal, Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (karenmotley@chadlaw.co.uk), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

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