The Royal College of Radiologists (RCR), the Society and College of Radiographers (SCoR), and the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM) are urging the U.K. government to support radiology and cancer radiotherapy in the National Health Service (NHS) in its next spending round.
These services are beset by chronic staff shortages and inadequate equipment and IT, the organizations cautioned in three separate submissions to the Treasury's Comprehensive Spending Review. Funding is needed to address these problems as well as to support radiotherapy cancer care that is provided by clinical oncologists, therapeutic radiographers and physicists, and technologists, and to replace and maintain linear accelerators.
"Patients were suffering long waits for scans before COVID-19 hit, and the UK's cancer outcomes have continually lagged behind the rest of Europe due to our need to improve early diagnosis rates and access to modern treatment," RCR President Dr. Jeanette Dickson said in a statement released by the college. "The coronavirus pandemic has compounded an already desperate lack of resource across imaging and cancer care, but it has also highlighted just how rapidly the NHS can adapt and improve, when it is given trust and provision to do so."
