Radiology Reporting Services

Tender description

The Radiology Department has responsibility for the provision of Radiology Services for NHS Highland, which is a multi-site health board. Radiology currently provides services for in-patients, out patients and Emergency Department 7 days a week at its 4 major Hospitals; all other sites provide a 5 day service. The reporting services at the weekend are confined to emergency out of hour’s provision (predominantly Emergency Department Trauma and Inpatient Computerised Tomography (CT) scans). There is a significant year on year increase in the demand for out-patient services for Plain Film, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Computerised Tomography (CT) and Ultrasound. This is set against the challenges facing the organisation in the recruitment of consultant radiologists. NHS Highland are seeking the services of an external partner to enable approximately 40,000 plain film x-ray body parts and 12,000 cross sectional exams to be reported on an annual basis. This level of service requirement is ad-hoc and there will not be a commitment to purchase a guaranteed level of service. Additionally, the radiology department is currently not able to sustain a local on call rota, and so services under Radiology Reporting Services framework are required to fulfil the full requirement of out of hours cross sectional emergency imaging. This includes some CT angiography work commensurate with providing acute stroke services to adults and children, and some intracranial angiography reporting in acute subarachnoid haemorrhage. Out of hours reports by subspecialist radiologists are not expected, but would be welcomed.