Radiology delays worst on record despite spend on private providers soaring

Almost one million patients in 2024 waited more than a month for their scan results – despite NHS spending on outsourcing radiology reporting to private firms reaching an all-time high.

New analysis by the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) reveals that a record 976,000 scans in England breached the one-month target last year – a 28% increase on 2023, a stark failure against the NHS target of zero scans results taking longer than a month. 

This comes despite soaring spend on private sector support. In 2024, trusts and health boards across the UK spent £325 million on managing excess demand, with £216m going to private teleradiology companies. This has risen 24% in a year and is more than double pre-pandemic levels. 

Almost every radiology department in the UK now outsources some of its workload, largely to cover gaps in rotas caused by a national 30% shortfall in clinical radiologists. Demand for CT and MRI imaging grew by 8% last year, and services are struggling to keep pace. While this approach eases short-term pressures, the RCR warns it is failing to fix the root cause and is becoming financially unsustainable. 

If current trends continue, we’ll be spending more than £400m a year by 2028 – enough to cover the salaries of 3,389 full-time consultant radiologists.

The RCR is calling for funds to be redirected away from short-term fixes and into longer-term solutions, including training new radiologists and investing in technology such as AI tools that will improve productivity in reporting. 

Dr Katharine Halliday, President of the Royal College of Radiologists said:
“It is a false economy to be spending over £200m of NHS funds outsourcing radiology work to private companies, and evidence of our failure to train and retain the amount of NHS radiologists we need. We must plan for the long-term, training the workforce we need to meet demand while embracing solutions that can boost our productivity so that patients no longer face such agonising waits for answers.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

• The government’s target (England only) is that “no verified report should take longer than 4 weeks to be provided after image acquisition, under any circumstance”.
• In 2024, 976,000 scans took longer than a month to be reported on against a target of zero. This represents 2% of scans taken in 2024, and a significant increase on previous years. 
• For complex scans (CT and MRI) this figure has also worsened with 3.4% of these scans taking longer than a month to be read in 2024. This is 434,000 CT and MRI scans, an increase of more than a quarter (26%) on 2023 figures (346,000 scans). 
• 5.6% of outpatient CTs and MRIs (423,000 scans) took longer than 28 days to be read in 2024.
• London, the East of England and the South-East regions were all above the England average for scans which took more than 28 days to be read at 3.4%, 2.5% and 2.1% respectively.
• Cambridgeshire and Peterborough (6.9%) and South East London (4.4%) have the worst overall turnaround times.
• 95% of trusts and health boards in the UK outsource some of their radiology reporting to private companies. 
• This is preliminary data from the RCR’s annual clinical radiology census, which will be published in full on 5th June alongside its annual clinical oncology census.