Member benefits
Clinical imaging services play a pivotal role in the diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of various disease processes and injuries. Patients are referred to imaging services for assistance in both diagnosis and deciding on the best subsequent management of a patient’s condition. Imaging services are therefore vital for the delivery of effective health and social care. Chest radiographs are a high-volume test, with nearly 7 million performed annually in England. Patients who have a chest X-ray (CXR) performed require accurate and timely results.
The value and benefits of effective team working to deliver clinical imaging services are well known. The 2020 Diagnostics: Recovery and Renewal report sets out the principles and arrangements for providing high-quality patient care within multi-professional teams. The current document defines the education and training required for all members of the multi-professional team who report CXRs within a clinical imaging service. It is expected that other CXR reporters operating outside of a clinical imaging service should follow the same standards for education and training to ensure that they are trained to the same level of overall competence. Any practitioner who is reporting an adult CXR formally should fulfil the criteria in this document.
In this document, we define a standard workflow for diagnostic imaging episodes (The “Diagnostic Radiology Life Cycle”) from the point of referral to result delivery by defining and detailing each of the timepoints on the journey of an examination through three key stages: pre-acquisition, image acquisition and post-acquisition.
When determining access to clinical imaging requesting, inconsistencies remain across services. The guidance has been co-developed by the Royal College of Radiologists, the Society and College of Radiographers, the Royal College of Nursing, and NHS England. It is supported by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and the Centre for Advancing Practice.