First Community Diagnostic Centre Value Partnership with Siemens Healthineers set to improve health outcomes across Teesside

By Integrated Care Journal

A first-of-its-kind seven-year Value Partnership will see Siemens Healthineers support Tees Valley Community Diagnostic Centre to deliver up to 104,000 checks, scans and tests a year on the high street.

North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust and South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have announced the first Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) Value Partnership to be collaboratively delivered with Siemens Healthineers. The seven-year partnership will set a gold standard for CDCs, placing efficiency, scalability and patient care at its core. Once fully operational, the CDC is set to deliver up to 104,000 potentially lifesaving checks, scans and tests a year.

An impressive fleet of nine imaging systems will be provided, including a variety of CT, MRI, X-ray and ultrasound equipment from Siemens Healthineers. Support includes maintenance of the systems and additional services to bolster prostate cancer pathways and productivity including digital AI, consulting, workforce planning and education. The CDC represents an important investment to improve healthcare outcomes across the region where the proportion of people with major health conditions is at least 10 per cent higher than the national average.

“Integrating advanced imaging systems and AI solutions enables us to provide quicker, more effective diagnostics and treatment while the community setting brings essential services closer to our patients,” said Gail Griffiths, Diagnostic Services Lead for Responsive Care at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust.

Delivered by the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board, the CDC supports efforts to address health inequalities in the area by ensuring a collaborative, community-based approach, and aligns with government ambitions to move more care away from hospital settings. Access to care outside of a hospital setting means patients can receive more convenient health checks closer to home. The central location in the heart of Stockton town centre alongside a library and leisure centre not only improves access to care, but also encourages a wider transformation of the high street.

The NHS’ 2024/25 priorities and operational planning guidance identifies the opening of new CDCs as a key action for systems, and the upcoming 10-Year Health Plan is expected to reaffirm the value of CDCs for delivering the government’s desire to further shift care in community settings.

Tees Valley CDC will benefit from digital AI solutions as part of the partnership. Utilising AI-Rad Companion from Siemens Healthineers, standardised reporting of the scans will enable quicker, more effective prostate cancer pathways, helping to support both productivity and patient throughput. Support from Siemens Healthineers Consulting includes a tailored transformation programme featuring a project to help increase the daily number of patients receiving MRI scans by up to 40 per cent.¹ The partnership will also support upskilling the workforce with tailored training and education opportunities to meet the CDC’s unique requirements.

Among the range of CT, MRI, X-ray and ultrasound equipment from Siemens Healthineers are two SOMATOM X.cite CTs. Both systems are designed with patient experience in mind, equipped with the unique guidance of myExam Companion to automate results, as well as Tin Filter technology to optimise dose efficiency. Tees Valley CDC will also include two MAGNETOM Sola MRI systems, a YSIO X.pree X-ray and two ACUSON Sequoia ultrasound systems from Siemens Healthineers. The wide range of systems will support the delivery of care with the potential for one-stop clinics in the future for diagnostic tests conveniently based in the centre of Stockton.

Kelly Smith, Head of Radiology at South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, commented: “In partnership with North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust and Siemens Healthineers we are making a significant step forward in improving healthcare outcomes across the Teesside region. By bringing imaging technology and comprehensive AI solutions to a community setting, we’re not only enhancing diagnostic capabilities but also ensuring more accessible healthcare for our patients.”

“Together with South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Siemens Healthineers we aim to transform healthcare delivery in our region and significantly improve outcomes, added Gail Griffiths.

Ghada Trotabas, Managing Director of Siemens Healthineers Great Britain & Ireland, stated: “This groundbreaking collaboration with North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust and South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is the first of its kind for community diagnostics centres. Located in a high street setting, the centre will set a new benchmark for delivering efficient services outside of the hospital environment, bringing care closer to the patients who need it most.

“Our partnership ensures the CDC stays adaptable to the evolving needs of patients, contributing to the local healthcare delivery transformation initiatives across Teesside.”

To find out more about Value Partnerships, visit siemens-healthineers.co.uk/value-partnerships

¹ The statement by Siemens Healthineers Consulting described herein is based on projected results that may be achieved in the customer’s unique setting subject to all recommendations being implemented. Since there is no ‘typical’ hospital and many variables exist (e.g. hospital size, case mix, level of IT adoption) there can be no guarantee that other customers will achieve the same results.

Lead image caption: (From left to right) Lee Charlton – Regional Sales Manager at Siemens Healthineers Great Britain and Ireland, Gail Griffiths – Diagnostic Services Lead at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, Kelly Smith – Head of Radiology at South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Neil Lincoln – Head of Imaging Sales at Siemens Healthineers Great Britain and Ireland, with the new SOMATOM X.Cite CT scanner from Siemens Healthineers.

This article was kindly supported by Siemens Healthineers.

Featured, News, Population Health, Thought Leadership May 2, 2025

How combining data, curiosity and operational expertise is improving immunisation uptake

By Iona Rees and Harry Canty-Davis

By Iona Rees, Head of Improving Immunisation Uptake, and Harry Canty-Davis, Service Development Manager, Public Health Services, NHS South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit (CSU).

Vaccination is one of the most effective public health interventions, but uptake is decreasing. It will require dedicated uptake improvement programmes to reverse this trend. Analysis and reporting of data is crucial in identifying vaccine eligibility and take-up, areas of highest need and potential barriers. However, in our experience of working with public health and NHS teams, operational insights – particularly around primary care – are essential to interpret that data accurately so that vaccination campaigns are appropriately targeted and resources are well spent.

Vaccinations reduce serious illness and hospitalisation, benefiting both individuals and health and care providers. The World Health Organization reports that childhood vaccines prevent between 3.5 and 5 million deaths every year across the globe and COVID-19 vaccines are estimated to have saved more than a hundred thousand lives in England alone. However, vaccination uptake was already in decline before the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the three years from 2020 to 2023, 67 million children globally were reported to have missed out on one or more vaccinations. NHS data for the UK showed that coverage for all 14 standard childhood vaccinations decreased in 2023/24, with uptake lower among children living in the areas of greatest deprivation.

To realise the benefits of better health and reduced burden on NHS services through improved immunisation uptake, it is necessary to understand what barriers exist and why, before deciding how best to direct staff and financial resources.

Key principles for vaccination programmes

Through NHS South, Central and West CSU’s work in delivering the National Immunisation Management Service, Child Health Information Services (CHIS) and wider operational and analytical support for public health, we’ve identified three core principles that can be applied across any geography to increase vaccination uptake while making best use of limited resources:

1. Making data meaningful

Regional screening and immunisation teams often tell us they are “drowning in data”. The challenge lies in making that data useful – getting, cleansing and interpreting the right data to enable robust, informed decisions. This requires regional teams, commissioners, GP practices and CHIS providers to collaboratively extract and process live data from operational systems to give a timely, accurate picture of vaccination status, rather than relying on information that may be several weeks out of date.

But we also need to ensure we are making recommendations and decisions on data that is accurate and complete. Building in mechanisms to fill gaps in data or improve how information is coded, such as insight reporting, can significantly improve an organisation’s ability to target the right cohorts in the right way. To improve quality of primary care ethnicity data in London, for example, we used a text message campaign to enable registered patients to select their ethnicity which was automatically coded into the practice record.

2. Understanding the issues

Being curious about what the data appears to show, and applying operational insights to inform interpretation, can make a significant difference to the direction – and ultimate success – of a vaccination programme. For example, when the East of England region was experiencing poor COVID-19 vaccine uptake among white working-class young males, it was easy to link this to typically low engagement with health services.

A contact centre campaign to call those who hadn’t responded to invitations revealed that the real issues were the high number of people on zero-hour contracts, who couldn’t afford to take time off work for appointments, and lack of access to transport to get to vaccination centres. By deploying vaccination buses to places of high employment, such as large warehouses and farms, take-up improved, benefiting individuals, health services and large regional employers who were able to avoid operational disruption.

Similarly, when COVID-19 uptake levels within the Chinese population in the North West were reported to be low, initial assumptions were that this was culturally motivated. By viewing the data through a primary care operations lens, however, we were able to discern that the issue was only among 20- to 30-year-olds, who had registered with practices near to universities, but had since moved areas or countries. It was a simple record-keeping issue rather than a more complex cultural issue, avoiding the need for a costly community engagement campaign.

3. Enabling multidisciplinary discussion

Real-time data and dashboards are useful tools but bringing together people to discuss and interrogate what the data means is incredibly valuable. Allowing time to talk though the ‘why’ helps to ensure that when organisations take action, it is productive and cost-effective. Useful questions to cover include: what are the key issues coming through? What are the continuing trends? Where is the evidence for this? What methodology is being used and is it sound? What could this mean operationally?

In the North West, the NHS England regional team uses monthly reports on the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination campaign to bring together public health, screening and immunisation colleagues to share and work through the analysis, making time for important dialogue and collaboration on potential issues and interventions. This approach has proved so positive that it has now been commissioned for the entire 0-5s childhood immunisation programme across Greater Manchester.

Using limited resources effectively

Vaccine promotion must be targeted in the most effective way possible to benefit our patients and communities. This is as much about the activity organisations stop doing as it is the plans they pursue. In applying the above principles, we are seeing organisations develop cost and resource-efficient strategies based on a sound understanding of both the data and how it applies operationally.

Using this approach, Blackburn with Darwen ICS discovered that clinic locations and language were the main barriers to flu vaccine uptake among 2- to 3-year-olds in deprived and multi-ethnic areas. Adopting a collaborative approach with regional, ICB and GP practice colleagues, including arranging weekend clinics and sending out information in multiple languages, has helped to increase flu vaccine uptake by 10 per cent in 12 practices.

Bringing curiosity and operational expertise to data analysis has also avoided additional investment in a resource-intensive ‘call and recall’ campaign to improve MMR vaccination rates in young adults and teenagers. Although the data initially suggested the campaign was working, further analysis showed this was due to vaccination records being retrospectively updated within GP practices rather than vaccine uptake increasing.

The Darzi investigation urges the NHS to focus on furthering the shift from ‘treatment to prevention’. Ensuring our core public health interventions are optimised is a solid first step, and these principles apply not just to vaccines but also to screening and health checks programmes. More than 12 months on from the launch of the first NHS vaccination strategy, there is still much learning and best practice to emerge. But in our drive to progress, we must take time to challenge assumptions and fully understand what the data is telling us so that interventions are resource-efficient and deliver results.

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New framework agreement to support mental health services goes live

By Integrated Care Journal

Corporate services provider NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) has launched a new £70m framework agreement designed to speed up the time it takes for patients to access mental health services.

The unique Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism: Assessment and Diagnosis, NHS Talking Therapies and Crisis Services framework agreement provides NHS organisations with easy access to suppliers, including voluntary, community and social enterprises, that offer a wide range of services and can help reduce waiting times.

The mental health charity, Mind, has found that the cost of poor mental health is around £300bn a year in England alone. For children and young people, mental health services now account for over £1bn of NHS spending annually in England.

The new framework agreement is one of the first to be awarded under the new Provider Selection Regime, providing NHS trusts with the assurance that contracts awarded are fully compliant with the new legislation.

It is split into three Lots:

Lot 1 – Assessment and diagnosis

This includes a range of services and clinical assessments used in the diagnosis of common mental health conditions, severe mental illness, and neurological conditions. The lot will also include provision for ongoing assessments.

Lot 2 – NHS talking therapies

This lot covers NHS talking therapies for anxiety and depression. It provides treatment and psychotherapy for people with common mental health problems, including mixed depression and anxiety, panic disorder, agoraphobia and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Lot 3 – Crisis services

This focuses on relapse prevention, helping relevant authorities respond to patients at times when their mental health and/or social situation has deteriorated to the point they are at considerable risk and require additional support to remain in their current accommodation and/or prevent further harm.

Laura Goodwin, Category Manager for NHS SBS, explained: “Following extensive research and market engagement, NHS SBS understood the need and urgency for this one-of-a-kind Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism: Assessment and Diagnosis, NHS Talking Therapies and Crisis Services Framework Agreement.

“Mental health problems are rising, and as a result, people are waiting longer than they should to access the care they need – a problem that has been highlighted in the Long Term Plan, the NHS 2024/25 priorities and Lord Darzi’s review of the NHS.

“Trusted, competent third-party suppliers are an efficient and effective way of tackling waiting lists. With our NHS customers contacting us regularly looking for help, we are confident that this new framework agreement will enable trusts to get the additional support they – and their patients – so desperately need.”

For more information, contact the NHS SBS team at: sbs.hello@nhs.net.

Evaluation of NHS Artificial Intelligence Lab identifies lessons to shape AI’s future in health and care

By Integrated Care Journal

Review finds that the NHS AI Lab has been integral in advancing and scaling AI development in healthcare, with early evidence demonstrating returns on investment for taxpayers. However, researchers flag challenges in scaling and adoption of AI, and the need for stronger alignment with NHS system needs.

Researchers from The University of Edinburgh have released a report highlighting the ‘transformative’ impact of the NHS Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab, a pioneering DHSC and NHS England initiative aimed at effectively integrating AI into the health and care sector.

The independent evaluation was conducted by a senior team of interdisciplinary researchers from The University of Edinburgh spanning public health, social science, informatics and business disciplines. With health economics support from NHS Arden and GEM Commissioning Support Unit, the report offers assessment of the NHS AI Lab’s achievements and challenges as well as identifying learning for future opportunities driven by AI.

The independent review was conducted between March and December 2024 using a range of evaluation techniques including document reviews, interviews, observations, analytics and outputs measurement. Key findings include:

Significant progress and learning: The NHS AI Lab has helped to advance AI development and scaling in healthcare, generating valuable insights and lessons that can help to shape future AI strategies for the NHS.
Return on investment: Early evidence indicates promising financial and patient care benefits, with health economics approaches demonstrating AI-driven technologies yielding substantial cost savings and improved health outcomes for some technologies supported by the NHS AI Lab. There is also early evidence of returns on investment for taxpayers.
Challenges in scaling and adoption: The report identifies barriers to widespread AI implementation and adoption, including procurement processes, integration with existing infrastructures and processes and the need for stronger alignment with NHS system needs.
Long-term impact: While some benefits are already evident, the full value of the NHS AI Lab’s work is expected to unfold over longer timeframes, requiring continued monitoring of emerging benefits and adoption processes.

Launched in 2019, with an initial investment of £143.5 million, the NHS AI Lab was established to accelerate the safe and effective adoption of AI in healthcare. Over the past five years, it has played a critical role in supporting and coordinating the development, testing and deployment of AI in health and care, as well as shaping regulatory frameworks. The evaluation explores the AI Lab’s contributions to AI policy, infrastructure and real-world applications, ensuring that the NHS remains at the forefront of AI-driven healthcare advancements.

One AI project cited implemented a diagnostic tool in a non-elective care setting across a range of regional networks within the NHS. The technology provided a set of decision support tools that aided frontline clinicians to make time critical treatment decisions, this resulted in efficiencies in longer term care and patient outcomes leading to a cost saving estimate of over £44 million across a cohort of 150,000 patients.

The evaluation report emphasises the need for sustained national support, strategic leadership and evidence-based decision-making to ensure AI’s full potential is realised in healthcare. It also highlights the importance of fostering positive collaboration between AI developers, policymakers and frontline healthcare providers.

Professor Kathrin Cresswell, lead researcher on the evaluation from The University of Edinburgh, commented: “The NHS AI Lab has been instrumental in positioning the UK at the forefront of delivering system-based change to promote AI-driven healthcare. This evaluation provides real-world empirical evidence and learning that can help to shape future efforts in the UK and internationally.”

Dom Cushnan, Director of AI, Imaging and Deployment, NHS England, commented: “The findings from this report will inform the ongoing development of AI strategies and approaches that can help the NHS to make the strategic shift from analogue to digital in health and care. Helping to shape a future where AI will enhance patient care, operational efficiency and overall healthcare outcomes.”

Rose Taylor, Executive Director Health and Care Transformation at NHS Arden & GEM, commented: “This evaluation demonstrates the important role that AI can play in the transformation of NHS services. The health economics approach taken in the review has enabled systems to demonstrate that AI technologies can deliver benefits for patients while simultaneously providing productivity and efficiency gains.”

Promising new treatment strategy for acute heart failure launches to patients

By Integrated Care Journal

A new strategy for treating acute heart failure has been shown to improve patients’ quality of life, as well as potentially easing pressure on NHS services by reducing patient admissions.

A new approach to monitoring and treating acute heart failure, which could significantly improve patients’ quality of life, has been launched at St George’s Hospital in London and Morriston Hospital in Swansea, Wales.

Heart failure is a long-term condition where the heart is unable to pump blood around the body properly. It tends to get gradually worse over time, but its symptoms can often be controlled with appropriate management.

The change to the heart failure pathway – an innovative approach to treatment plans coupled with frequent patient monitoring and testing – enables clinicians to increase doses of medication early, more quickly, and with frequent safety monitoring. This works to reduce patients’ symptoms and help prevent hospital readmissions, which can ease demand on Emergency Departments and acute care services.

The new treatment strategy, which has been endorsed by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), was adopted from the landmark international STRONG-HF trial. This multinational, 1,500 patient clinical trial showed a reduction in a composite measure of mortality rates and hospital readmissions for patients undergoing the new approach to treatment in the six months following discharge from hospital.

St George’s and Morriston are working in partnership with Roche Diagnostics UK & Ireland to implement the new and improved approach to treatment. The new treatment strategy will potentially benefit up to 100 patients in the first year of activity at St George’s and 10 per cent of all heart failure patients in the Swansea and Neath Port Talbot areas.

Paul Curtis, the first St George’s patient to be treated according to the new strategy, said: “After my heart attack, and the acute heart failure diagnosis that followed, I knew that it would be a long time before I felt ‘normal’ again. But just weeks after starting my treatment, I began to notice a steady improvement to my energy levels and ability to do physical jobs around the house. Recently, I’ve even been able to go on holiday. I hope that many more people with heart failure are able to be treated on this new pathway so they can recover more quickly too”.

Matthew Sunter, Lead Heart Failure Nurse at St George’s, said: “Heart failure kills as many people as cancer, yet cancer treatments such as chemotherapy start faster. Now, armed with our new knowledge, we’re able to replicate this with heart failure patients, starting them on higher doses of medicines and increasing them much more quickly – in around three weeks, as opposed to several months.

“I’ve been in this role 10 years, and when I started I never imagined we could treat patients in this manner. We’ve come a really long way, and I’m so proud of the work we’ve been doing at St George’s.”

A Roche blood biomarker test, which checks for signals given off by a heart if it is under stress or dysfunctioning, is a key component of the new, innovative treatment strategy.

Katherine Booth, Clinical Market Manager – Cardiac for Roche Diagnostics UK&I, said: “We know this small but significant change to the management of acute heart failure could improve the lives of many patients. We’re delighted to be working with St George’s and Morriston on introducing this improvement, and we hope to partner with more NHS organisations to ensure even more patients can benefit from it.”

Nick Hartshorne-Evans BEM, Founder and CEO of heart failure charity, Pumping Marvellous, said: “Reducing the significant symptomatic burden and improving health outcomes for individuals diagnosed with heart failure is crucial. The STRONG-HF treatment strategy represents an important system improvement.

“It has the capacity to onboard patients swiftly and ensure they are placed on GDMT (Guideline Directed Medical Therapy) more quickly. It will ensure that patients receive timely treatment, if required, following discharge, improving their health outcomes. I hope this approach is further adopted across the NHS, enabling patients to live better with heart failure.”

Skills for Health announces Our Health Heroes finalists

By Integrated Care Journal

The finalists for the 2025 Our Health Heroes Awards have been shortlisted.

Our Health Heroes champions the incredible people at the heart of our NHS and is delivered by Skills for Health in partnership with NHS Employers, NHS Shared Business Services, SFJ Awards, NHS Race and Health Observatory and Integrated Care Journal.

After an extensive selection process, 23 finalists have been chosen across nine categories, each recognising the outstanding health heroes of the UK.

The selected finalists will be invited to attend the ceremony held in Central London on 22 May where the gold, silver and bronze award winners will be announced.

The finalists are as follows:

Individual categories

Apprentice of the Year, sponsored by SFJ Awards:

Nasser Mohammed, Service Desk Supervisor/Developer, Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
Tim Muttock, Business Administration Apprentice, Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
Olivia Parsons, Clinic Manager, Beacon House

Healthcare Volunteer of the Year:

Andy Emery, Transport Volunteer, Royal Voluntary Service
David White, Patient Befriender Volunteer, Cardiff and Vale Health Board
Chris Wilson, Volunteer Community First Responder, Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust

Outstanding Life Contribution, sponsored by NHS Employers:

Caroline Dowsett, Clinical Nurse Specialist, East London Foundation Trust
Vedantee Shiebert, CAMHS Lead Nurse, Central and North West NHS Foundation Trust
Pauline Taylor, Children’s Complex Care Quality Assurance Nurse, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Operational Support worker of the Year:

Hayley Pedwell, Information Assistant, Macmillan Cancer Care
Brian Taylor, Ambulance Welfare Officer, North East Ambulance Service Unified Solutions
Lois Ward, Communications and Engagement Officer, Chesterfield Royal Hospital

Clinical Support Worker of the Year:

Lynette Cook, Ward Coordinator, Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust
Sam Desborough, Assistant Practitioner Occupational Therapist, Southwark Council
Sarah Haynes, Healthcare Assistant, Modality Partnership

Team categories

Best Healthcare Workforce Collaboration:

Personalised Independence Programme, Age UK HBW
The What Matters Team, Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust

Dedication to Lifelong Learnt Culture:

Coventry and Warwickshire Training Hub
Patford House Partnership

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Champion, sponsored by NHS Race and Health Observatory:

Wakefield Hospice
West Midlands Ambulance Service

Digital Innovation, sponsored by NHS Shared Business Services:

Paediatric Virtual Ward Team, Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Recruitment RPA Project Team, Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust

Follow #OurHealthHeroes on X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn for all the latest updates. To find out more visit: www.skillsforhealth.org.uk/awards

King’s College London becomes first to benefit from two whole-body PET-CT imaging systems

By Integrated Care Journal

As part of the National PET Imaging Platform, King’s College London will support transformational research to improve the calibre of care across the UK, including providing new insights and enhancing the development of drugs and diagnostics for conditions including cancer, cardiovascular and neurological diseases.

King’s College London (Kings) has become the first site in the UK to benefit from two Biograph Vision Quadra systems from Siemens Healthineers, marking a new era of PET-CT. This crucial, non-invasive imaging technique can detect diseases’ early onset, accelerating quality of care for patients while also enabling King’s to conduct innovative radiopharmaceutical, basic science and clinical research.

As part of the UK’s first-of-its-kind National PET Imaging Platform (NPIP), a collaborative initiative bringing together transformational research for clinical discovery, King’s will use the whole-body PET-CT systems for research to improve the calibre of healthcare across the UK.

With PET-CT demand rising nearly 10 per cent annually, this technological upgrade will help King’s meet this demand and significantly expand clinical and research capabilities, positioning King’s at the forefront of global PET-CT research. With higher sensitivity than existing technology, the hospital’s whole-body PET-CT scanners will provide unprecedented insights into anatomy, improving the detection, diagnosis and treatment of complex, multi-organ diseases.

Beyond supporting NPIP, the systems will bolster complex radiopharmaceutical production and tracer development research at King’s (one research tracer production can be used for twice as many scans). Patients will benefit from improved image quality and speed of examination, while a reduction in dose will enhance paediatric diagnostics and treatment.

The UK’s adoption of whole-body PET-CT signifies a major leap forward in medical imaging, promising significant improvements in patient care and research capabilities. Funding for the first installed scanner was secured from the Medical Research Council (MRC), with the system jointly managed by King’s and Imperial College London, scientific co-applicants alongside the King’s team. The second system is financed through a strategic investment by King’s.

Image caption: (L) Peter Kyle – Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology; (R) Professor Sebastien Ourselin, FREng, FMedSci, Assistant Principal (Innovation) at King’s College London visit St.Thomas’ Hospital to launch the NPIP-funded whole-body PET-CT scanner from Siemens Healthineers.

The two whole-body PET-CT systems at King’s are two of four across the UK supporting NPIP, all of which are supplied by Siemens Healthineers. By facilitating access to whole-body PET-CT imaging for clinicians, academics and industry, NPIP is set to accelerate discoveries, leading to more advances for UK researchers and better outcomes for patients. This not only enhances the UK’s clinical infrastructure but also reinforces its position as a global leader in medical technology and research.

Equipped with technical precision that redefines molecular imaging and optimises operational performance, the Biograph Vision Quadra systems from Siemens Healthineers enable near real-time imaging of a patient’s entire body. With an in-depth look at how the body interacts with administered substances, tumours can be characterised allowing for more personalised and precise treatment.

“Whole-body PET-CT has been an area of exciting development and exploration for several years now,” commented Professor Alexander Hammers, Head of the PET Imaging Centre, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences at King’s College London.

“We were very proud to obtain research funding for one whole-body PET-CT system; having a second one on the same site available for clinical use signifies a fundamental milestone in the advancement of nuclear medicine. I am looking forward to enhancing our research activities and our clinical services with two of these innovative scanners.”

“The addition of two new cutting-edge whole-body PET-CT scanners in our PET Centre makes us proud and excited,” added Professor Sebastien Ourselin, FREng, FMedSci, Assistant Principal (Innovation) at King’s College London.

“They will create an incredibly unique setting for the benefit of our patients, and for scaling up research and collaboration endeavours in partnership with Siemens Healthineers.”

Ghada Trotabas, Managing Director of Siemens Healthineers Great Britain and Ireland, stated: “We are honoured to collaborate with King’s College London in their ongoing pursuit to advancing molecular imaging. The installation of two Siemens Healthineers Biograph Vision Quadra systems marks the beginning of a new era in PET-CT imaging, paving the way for groundbreaking advancements in both clinical research and patient care.”

Lead image caption: (From left to right) Giulia Ginami – Strategic Partnerships Manager, Daniel Darian – Collaboration Manager Molecular Imaging, Graham Plant – Head of Diagnostic Imaging at Siemens Healthineers Great Britain & Ireland, Professor Alexander Hammers – Head of the PET Imaging Centre at the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences at King’s College London, Ghada Trotabas – Managing Director of Siemens Healthineers Great Britain & Ireland with one of the two new Biograph Vision Quadra systems at St. Thomas’ Hospital.

This content was kindly supported by Siemens Healthineers.

Reducing misdiagnosis and helping patients back to work

By Mark Thomas

New imaging technology promises to bring affordable, more detailed 3D imaging to care settings around the world, providing faster and more accurate diagnosis and helping patients get the right care.

Scaphoid fractures are notoriously difficult to diagnose, typically presenting among young men following a fall onto an outstretched hand, car accident or contact sport incident. One of eight small bones that make up the ‘carpal bones’ of the wrist, the scaphoid connects two rows of bones: one closer to the forearm and the other closer to the hand. These fractures can present with wrist or thumb pain but not necessarily any visible deformity or significant loss of motion, leading many incidences to be misdiagnosed as wrist sprains.

The scaphoid bone has an avascular blood supply that means, depending on the location and size of the break, there is a real risk of bone death where blood supply is cut off. This leads to a loss of wrist function and dexterity, which can have significant financial implications for those who rely on their flexibility of wrist movement that the scaphoid supports.

This is why MRI and CT images have become the ‘gold standard’ for diagnosis. However, limited resources and long imaging waiting lists mean clinicians across the UK instead rely on X-rays in the first instance. If a scaphoid fracture is suspected, clinicians will typically request four X-ray views, versus two for other wrist injuries, but even that is not a guarantee that the fracture will show as the scaphoid bone can be easily hidden by other carpal bones in a 2D image.

*Traditional 2D film X-ray radiograph showing broken carpal bone (scaphoid fracture)*

It is easy to understand how scaphoid fractures can be easily missed then, particularly in overstretched A&E departments where there may not be sufficient scanner time or radiology cover to diagnose ‘minor injuries’ quickly. Clinical teams usually adopt a conservative approach therefore: Initially treating the injury as if the bone is fractured, with splinting recommended to protect it from further damage, and a follow-up appointment with the fracture clinic in 7-10 days’ time. By this point, if the patient is still experiencing pain, new X-rays will likely reveal initial bone healing more clearly than the original scaphoid break.

It is a sensible approach but one that ultimately causes several problems:

Firstly, where clinicians are concerned about the possibility of a scaphoid fracture but unable to confirm it during the initial visit, splinting the wrist while awaiting further imaging or specialist review means patients can find themselves unable to work unnecessarily, with significant financial implications due to lost earnings.

Scaphoid fractures are usually slow to heal because tiny blood vessels supplying nutrients to the site are often damaged at the time of injury. This means that even though the results of both surgical and non-surgical interventions are very good following diagnosis, both approaches require considerable time in plaster, with knock-on impacts for patients and their dependents, including inability to drive, work and earn normally. Should surgery ultimately be required, it is easy to see how treatment delays of just a couple of weeks can have a real impact on patients’ lives.

Finally, requiring all patients to attend follow-up appointments in fracture clinic has significant resource implications for a healthcare system already under pressure, not least in terms of clinician time and additional imaging requirements.

Improving diagnosis through next-gen imaging

Accepting all of the above, how then can we improve diagnosis for these patients? How can we prevent patients with sprained wrists taking unnecessary time off work, while supporting those with scaphoid fractures to access faster treatment and limit injury-related loss of earnings?

One potential solution lies in a new imaging technology – already proven in the veterinary industry – which promises to bring affordable, more-detailed 3D imaging to the point of care in hospitals and clinics around the world.

This next-generation technology builds on the foundations of digital tomosynthesis (DT) imaging, which is widely used for breast imaging across the NHS. With traditional DT, a conventional X-ray tube moves through a range of angles to derive 3D data – providing better diagnostic information than 2D X-ray but, restricted by its limited depth resolution capabilities, creating difficulties localising some structures and elements.

Adaptix’s unique 3D X-ray technology ‘sweeps’ in two dimensions, enhancing the Z resolution relative to conventional DT. Images are quickly reconstructed – in under 20 seconds – providing slice-by-slice images that can be analysed extremely quickly. This allows for slice thickness adjustments over regions of interest – a particularly important feature when looking for ‘tricky’ fractures, such as those to the scaphoid bone.

The result? A high-resolution 3D image that provides far greater definition and clarity than 2D X-ray techniques, at a cost and radiation dose similar to traditional X-ray. What is more, the compact design of the technology and low-radiation dose, mean it can be brought directly to the point of patient care – reducing time spent moving between hospital departments and allowing clinicians to obtain imaging ‘in clinic’ if needed.

About the author

Mark Thomas, BSc (Hons), PgC, HCPC Reg., Product Manager, Adaptix

Mark spent the first 10 years of his career working as a Radiographer in human healthcare both in the UK and Australia. Later, he focused on CT, managing the Neuro CT Service in Oxford in his final position. In 2008, Mark joined Toshiba/Canon Medical as a CT Specialist, and spent the next 15 years initially providing training, before managing the UK Clinical CT Team. With a strong team Mark drove the adoption of new technologies pushing clinical boundaries, maintaining high clinical integrity and importantly customer satisfaction. Mark’s background gives him real clarity on the future and opportunity for inclusion of Digital Tomosynthesis Imaging in a modern, forward thinking Imaging Service.