Queen Victoria Hospital invests £750,000 in CT scanner

The Queen Victoria Hospital has invested £750,000 in a CT scanner, which is aimed at improving access to diagnostics and increasing the hospital’s capacity.

The Siemens machine replaces the hospital’s first scanner, funded by the hospital’s League of Friends, which was installed in 2018.

Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust announced on its website that the new scanner will “increase the hospital’s capacity by around 20% and form an important part of its Community Diagnostic Centre service, providing greater access for patients who need a scan to support a decision to determine the care they need”.

There has been a consistent increase in the number of patients nationally needing diagnostic services and diagnostics is a priority for Sussex as part of the shared delivery plan, looking to increase capacity and reduce waiting times, the trust said.

As well as helping the Queen Victoria Hospital to reduce its waiting lists, it is also hoped that the scanner will support other providers in Sussex, Surrey and Kent to reduce their waiting lists for CT scans.

Government figures published on 11 July 2024, show that the UK had the lowest number of CT scanners (10), MRI units (8.6), and PET scanners (0.5) per million population in 2021 amongst 10 comparator countries with similar levels of economic development.

Health secretary Wes Streeting has pledged to double the number of CT scanners and MRI scanners.

Speaking at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change’s ‘Future of Britain’ conference on 9 July, Streeting said: “If you look at some of Labour’s first steps in our manifesto, doubling the number of CT and MRI scanners and not just more scanners, but AI-enabled scanners, those are massive productivity gains.

“Those are massive improvements for patient experience in terms of how many people we can get through and how quickly – they’re massive improvements in the quality of diagnostics”.

Meanwhile in April 2024, the Queen Victoria Hospital announced that it awarded Insight Direct an estimated £10m contract for the Altera Sunrise electronic patient record, which will run until March 2029, with the potential for a further extension for two years.