The number of patients in England waiting more than a month for CT or MR exam results has doubled since February of this year, according to the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR).
The RCR's latest survey on the topic included responses from 83% of National Health Service (NHS) trusts in the country, and found that in 93 out of 128 trusts (73%), there are patients waiting more than 30 days for results of x-ray, CT, or MRI exams. The RCR also found that between its February and September surveys, the number patients waiting more than a month for a scan increased from 6,160 to 13,018.
Particularly for MR and CT, the survey found that between February and September:
- The number of unreported MRI studies rose by 127%, from 3,277 to 7,438
- The number of unreported CT studies rose by 94%, from 2,883 to 5,580
There has been an improvement in reporting x-ray exam results over the six-month period, with the number of exam results unreported for more than 30 days decreasing by 32%. However, there are still 175,865 unreported x-ray exam results in England, according to the RCR.
The survey shows the problem of exam reporting delays in NHS radiology services is a persistent and severe one, due to chronic capacity shortages and a failure to train and recruit sufficient numbers of radiologists, said RCR president Dr. Giles Maskell in a statement.
"These results show just how far we are from achieving the government's target of 28 days from referral to test result by 2020," Maskell said. "Urgent action is required by Health Education England and NHS England to increase the number of clinical radiologists in training."
