NHS Trust Scandal – 11,000 Medical Images Unreported

An NHS Trust is in hot water after the Care Quality Control (CQC) identified more than 11,000 vital x-ray images had failed to be reported, raising deep concerns about patient safety.

The BBC reports that Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust (WAHT) which is more than £50 million in deficit, has been warned that the watchdog may take urgent enforcement action unless immediate steps are taken to tackle the crisis.The problem of unreported medical images made National headlines in December after the CQC made an unannounced inspection to the Trust in July. It was revealed that thousands of patients across the UK were enduring potentially life-threatening delays for their results after their scans were carried out at the radiology departments of the Alexandra Hospital, Redditch, Worcestershire Royal Hospital and Kidderminster Hospital.
By law, patients should not wait any longer than 6 weeks for a diagnostic test, a key rule laid out in the NHS Constitution.The consequences of such a back log of medical scans can have drastic impacts on both the patient and the Trust. Missed diagnosis can be life threatening and lost or unreported images can require re-scans which involve more money, time and other resources being unnecessarily spent.
The Solution

NHS Trusts including the WAHT can benefit from CIMAR’s cutting edge cloud technology that enables rapid, high-volume sharing between any Clinical systems and people. Importantly in this case, through CIMAR’s cloud unreported scans in one hospital, could have been accessed and reported by radiologists in any other hospital, effectively load-balancing NHS reporting resources across sites. Or the hospital could have easily distribute image loads between multiple external reporting services for rapid diagnostics. CIMAR’s solution simplifies and streamlines the sharing and exchange of medical images across the country, removing any delays previously encountered by Doctors, Clinicians and Health Care professionals.
Our powerful automated workflows allow images to be shared instantly and our zero footprint, FDA approved viewer allows the scans to be viewed anywhere, at any time making it more convenient for Doctors and Patients.

If you would like to learn more about how you can improve your image sharing workflows, contact CIMAR today and revolutionize the way you store and transfer your medical images.