PET/CT - a local service
Neil Fairlie, Consultant Radiologist, Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust explains;
The InHealth PET/CT service has been running in Northampton since April 2008. The start of the new service was viewed with some trepidation as a well functioning sub regional PET/CT service had been previously established in Leicester by Dr Richard Coulden to serve the whole of the south of the East Midlands region.
The change over went surprisingly smoothly. A new service started with weekly visits by the mobile scanner to both Leicester and Northampton. This was particularly welcomed by Northampton patients who no longer had so far to travel. Patients appear to prefer to wait for the visit of the scanner to their local hospital rather than to travel elsewhere for a sooner appointment. Numbers of scans gradually increased demonstrating a previously unmet need.
The Patient Referral Centre has proved very efficient. It is not unusual for patients to be discussed at an MDT on the Wednesday or Thursday and have their PET/CT scan at Northampton on the following Friday. The information leaflets offered to patients were always good and have been gradually refined.
Scans are reported locally. A group of three designated radiologists report the scans at Glenfield Hospital, Leicester (Dr Trevor Maskell, Dr James Entwisle and Dr Yvette Griffin) with Dr Steve Peterson reporting at Kettering and me reporting in Northampton. ARSAC licences are held across both sites by Dr Maskell, Dr Peterson and myself. Cross cover allows for holidays and other absences without being dependent on colleagues outside the region.
Adapting to the reporting software was more difficult than expected but the major incentive for the radiologists was being able to report at their base hospital with access to the previous images on PACS. This put an end to discs being transported up and down the M1.
The new improved Medstamp 2 software has been recently released offering a more integrated approach to image transfer and reporting.
The local clinicians have been very supportive of the service. Strenuous attempts were made from the start or the service to provide full image sets for PACS and these facilitated informed discussion by the MDTs and both surgical and radiotherapy planning to be improved. Immediate feedback improved both the clinical referrals and the quality of the reports.
PET/CT has become an accepted and valued tool at Northampton. The local service has demonstrated its usefulness we look forward to an even busier 2010!