Facing looming radiology crisis in UK, Health Secretary plans to hire 500
National Health Service (NHS) Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt in the United Kingdom plans to hire 500 more cancer experts, including radiographers and clinical endoscopists. His plan is to “speed up” cancer diagnosis to ensure patients begin treatment sooner.
This move comes after a reported crisis in the radiological workforce in the U.K. It also follows after the Care Quality Commission launched a national review of radiologists after finding more than 23,000 chest x-rays were not reviewed by a radiologist or appropriately trained clinician at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth, England.
Despite recent deaths due to misdiagnosis and backlogs of x-rays, Hunt believes NHS has made progress toward diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
"We want to save more lives and to do that we need more specialists who can investigate and diagnose cancer quickly,” Hunt told Laura Donnelly of The Independent. “These extra specialists will go a long way to help the NHS save an extra 30,000 lives by 2020."
More Radiology Business coverage of the shortage of radiologists in the U.K. can be found here and here.
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As a senior news writer for TriMed, Subrata covers cardiology, clinical innovation and healthcare business. She has a master’s degree in communication management and 12 years of experience in journalism and public relations.