Updated guidance on transforming imaging services in England

UPDATED guidance for NHS providers of diagnostic imaging services which IPEM helped to produce has been published.

The ‘Diagnostic imaging network workforce guidance’ has been developed in consultation with and supported by IPEM, the Royal College of Radiologists and the Society of Radiographers.

In 2019, NHS England and NHS Improvement published ‘Transforming imaging services in England: a national strategy for imaging networks’. This strategy committed to establishing imaging networks across England by 2023 in order to address the challenges of rising demand, shortages in the imaging workforce, and ageing imaging equipment which continued to put extreme pressure on delivering timely imaging services and high-quality patient care.

This latest implementation document provides guidance and case studies and identifies available tools to help NHS providers of diagnostic imaging services develop a strategic workforce plan for their network.

Workforce planning

The guidance seeks to maximise the utilisation of the current workforce within imaging departments through networks by improving working environments and sharing good practice, as well as guide planning for the future growth of the workforce.

Matt Dunn, IPEM’s Vice President Medical Physics, said: ‘This workforce guidance will be invaluable for centres planning to increase their diagnostic capacity in response to the Richards report.

‘However, given the current fragile state of the medical physics workforce it is imperative that services urgently plan for the increase in staffing and training that will be required to meet the ambitious goals for diagnostics expansion.’

*Note: The new guidance document was primarily written to support the community diagnostic centres in England and was not designed to be a comprehensive description of the full imaging workforce.