The use of MRI scans has been growing across the UK as their range of uses has continued to grow, with one of the latest to be established is the capacity to detect changes in the brain in long Covid sufferers. However, meeting the needs of patients is an ongoing challenge.
As MRI scans prove useful for more things, the demand for scans increases. This means that more scanners are needed, and extra staff are needed to operate them. As an agency working in the field, we know only too well that in both the public and private sectors, there are always many unfilled radiography vacancies.
The need for agency staff to help plug the gap is unlikely to diminish any time soon. Data from Statistica revealed that between 2000 and 2014, the number of MRI scanners soared from 331 to 467, although initially there was a fall in provision to a low of 271 in 2003.
However, further data from Statistica has shown that Britain still has far fewer scanners than other developed nations.
The 2021 global comparison figures do not list the number per million in the UK, but the 2014 figure (466 for 64.8 million) equated to just 7.2 per million. By 2021, Japan had 57.3 per million, the US 37.99, and both South Korea and Germany over 35.
This means even if the UK had doubled its MRI scanner provision in the seven years from 2014, it would still lag well behind. However, the reverse was true.
Indeed, by 2017 the Royal College of Radiotherapists lamented that UK provision stood at just 6.1 scanners per million. It called on the NHS to ‘future proof’ MRI scanning with more new scanners, but clearly with such relatively low provision, the private health sector must have a role in meeting UK demand.
None of that, private or public, can be done without enough staff. And while the UK has been lagging behind its peers for 21st century scanner provision, it still lacks the workforce to operate them. Many will hope for more investment in these areas, but in the meantime, healthcare providers will continue to need the skills of agency staff.