Health and Social care Committee

Access to medical technologies in Wales

MT ToR 18 The Society and College of Radiographers (SCoR)

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The Society and College of Radiographers (SCoR) is the professional, educational and trade union body for its members in the UK.

Diagnostic radiographers and their support workforce have a key role to play in the imaging and diagnosis of disease and injury and are responsible for the examination of patients and clients using radiation, ultrasound and magnetic fields in a variety of clinical environments. In addition radiographers are involved in interventional procedures. Therapeutic radiographers treat patients, mostly those with cancer, using ionising radiation. They are responsible for the accurate planning and delivery of a prescribed dose of radiation to specific areas of the body and deal with the wider aspects of oncology. Additionally they play an important part in helping patients and their carers cope with the physical and psychological problems associated with treatment before, during and after treatment.

The SCoR welcomes an inquiry into access to medical technologies in Wales. This is particularly important at a time of service reorganisation and financial constraint.

It will be no surprise that we would wish for both medical imaging and therapeutic technologies to be included within the scope of the project. The aspects to be considered could be:

· Service availability to meet patient needs; i.e. the utilisation and location of technology. An example could be access to appropriate technology (e.g. ultrasound) in the community or 7-day service provision

· Access to specific technologies such as interventional and cardiac radiology services for those living in rural communities

· PET & PET-CT access in Wales and the availability of the requisite pharmaceuticals

· Investing in implementation of cutting edge developments in radiotherapy such as Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy to the levels recommended in published guidance, so that every patient who will benefit is able to be offered this treatment. Implementation of Image Guided radiotherapy aligned to recently published National Radiotherapy Implementation Guidance (NRIG).  A programme of IGRT support is being funded by NCAT for England.  Wales could commission support from NCAT to facilitate aligned implementation of IGRT.  Stereotactic Ablative radiotherapy should be available for those patients where there is proven benefit.  This inevitably leads to funded support to ensure the training needs of staff are met in order to make best use of the technology. This may well be considered out of scope although it should be an unavoidable issue.

· Effective integrated IT systems in order to gain the most from technological investment (e.g. cross organisational radiology reporting systems and hot-reporting services)