Linköping, Sweden – January 12, 2022 – International medical imaging IT and cybersecurity company Sectra (STO: SECT B) has signed a contract for radiology imaging with an NHS consortium in Surrey and Sussex in the UK. Some of the expected benefits following the contract are seamless radiology imaging access across hospitals, improved access to specialists, faster informed decisions and enhanced care for patients.

A consortium of NHS trusts that covers a population of circa 1.2 million will gain immediate access to important patient imaging, and will mobilize a regional workforce for patients, following a decision to procure a medical imaging system from Sectra. The contract, signed during the second quarter of the fiscal year 2021/2022, comprises the Sectra enterprise imaging solution and will be used across the hospitals to review and store imaging acquired throughout the diagnostic process including community diagnostic hubs. The solution will handle approximately 1.7 million examinations per year.

Everything from x-rays to ultrasounds, CT scans, MRIs and more will become instantly available to relevant healthcare professions across five trusts in Surrey and Sussex, regardless of where in the consortium a patient has had their medical imaging captured. This will help radiologists and other busy clinicians to make faster informed judgements for patients on a large range of clinical scenarios from cancer care to trauma cases and much more. The project will support faster turnaround of important diagnostic reports and will help scarce specialists to support hospitals across their region. The initiative will also help to avoid unnecessary duplicate scans and radiation exposure for patients, whilst removing the need for manual, time-consuming processes currently relied on in many parts of the NHS to share images between hospitals.
Dr Benjamin Salt, clinical lead for the consortium, who also works as a consultant interventional radiologist and deputy chief clinical information officer at East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “Some of the biggest benefits will be for patients who move around the region as they are referred to specialist centres at different trusts – whether that’s for cancer care, trauma, vascular medicine, ophthalmology, head and neck, plastics, liver, pancreatic surgery and more."

The project, initially focused on radiology and mammography imaging, covers large parts of Surrey and Sussex and will see the Sectra system deployed as a cloud-based solution. This will lessen the technology burden on hospitals and create conditions for potential expansion to additional specialties to embrace the benefits of integrated diagnostics.

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