HEALTH boards across Scotland have spent almost £17 million on sending scans to other parts of the country and across the world by private companies amid a staffing crisis.

According to the NHS boards that responded to Freedom of Information requests, more than 650,000 scans have been outsourced by Scottish NHS trusts since 2013 – with costs soaring for many trusts who are using the practice.

Some health boards have sent scans away as far as Australia or New Zealand to be read, at substantial cost, while several private companies have been recruited to carry out the service.

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The Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) has cautioned that workforce shortages has meant “half of consultant radiologist vacancies have remained unfilled for a year or more”.

The RCR’s latest figures showed Scotland‘s full-time radiologist workforce is 40 per cent short-staffed, while the organisation has warned the practice is leading to delays in cancer diagnoses.

NHS Ayrshire and Arran paid out £485,000 for more than 78,000 scans to be read in 2013/14, but the costs have almost doubled in the current financial year to £921,000, despite only 47,000 scans being outsourced.
The health board did not respond to requests for comment.

NHS Highland, which also provides radiography service for NHS Orkney, has spent more than £3.4m on outsourcing scans since 2013, including almost £650,000 in the current financial year and more than £750,000 last year.

NHS Highland was unable to say how many scans have been outsourced.
An NHS Highland spokesman said: “Outsourcing is used to help bridge 
a capacity shortfall in the body of consultant radiologists, which has arisen due to a combination of vacant posts, retirements, increasing demand and complexity of imaging undertaken. 

“In line with the national picture there are challenges to recruitment and to ensure prompt reporting of the imaging performed in the Highlands we, like other Scottish health boards, utilise an outsourcing approach to minimise delays to diagnosis and treatment that might otherwise occur.”

In 2019, NHS Western Isles sent 170 scans outside of Scotland to be read, costing almost £4,500.

NHS Dumfries and Galloway has spent more than £690,000 on the practice. The board has seen costs increase from about £30,000 in 2013/14 to more than £250,000 in 2019/20 so far. t has used the services of private companies Medica, Inhealth Reporting, 4Ways and Newcastle Clinic Ltd.

NHS Lanarkshire also uses Medica and said it didn’t know where its patients’ scans were being read.

Shadow health secretary Miles Briggs said: “There is a clear correlation between the shortage of radiology staff in Scotland and the number of patient scans being sent outside of Scotland to be read in countries like Australia and New Zealand.

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 “The fact we have seen a five times increase in the cost of NHS boards sending scans abroad, now over £16m, demonstrates the significant cost to our NHS in Scotland as these scans are being analysed privately and adding to delays in scans being read.

“Workforce planning is central to having enough specialists to properly run our hospitals and NHS, and this includes having enough training places at our universities for radiologists. “

“SNP minsters have simply failed to deliver the specialists and long-term workforce planning we needed to see.”

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has spent £2.6m on sending scans away to be read since 2013, while NHS Fife has spent £1.1m on the practice.

A spokesman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: “Radiologists are highly sought after across the entire UK and, like every other board in Scotland, we have faced challenges recruiting to unfilled posts.

“Radiologists are an essential part of modern healthcare and are medical doctors specialising in diagnosing and treating diseases such as cancer as well as injuries using medical imaging techniques.

“Over the last two years, we have secured a number of additional radiologists to join us and increase our capacity but to help us manage peaks in demand we have continued to outsource support.”

NHS Borders only started sending scans away in the current financial year and has spent almost £180,000 so far.

NHS Forth Valley has spent more than £900,000 since 2015 for more than 37,000 scans to be read.

Previously, Dr Grant Baxter, who chairs the RCR in Scotland, warned more training places are urgently needed – adding that if the issue is not addressed soon, there simply won’t be a service in the next couple of years.

A spokesman from the RCR said: “The rise and reliance on outsourced reporting of scans is an established and escalating trend due to the shortage of hospital radiologists, not just in Scotland but around the UK.

"Outsourcing companies play a vital role in keeping services afloat. 

“However, we know anecdotally and from our own workforce data that radiologist shortages are leading to variable access to image-guided surgery and delays in cancer diagnoses, not just additional NHS costs.”