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Each of our Directors occasionally spend time shadowing staff in services across the hospital as part of their ‘Executive back to the floor’ sessions. They also blog about their visits. This blog is from Judy Dyos, our Chief Nursing Officer, who visited colleagues in our Radiology Team.

I recently went back to the floor in Radiology, Radiology has developed hugely over the past two decades, and scanning now makes up most of the work for the teams now. Our team delivers ultrasound scanning, MRI scanning, CT scanning and interventional radiology, as well as the more traditional plain film X-rays.

The team that provides support for the Emergency Department (ED) told me about the impact of ED waiting times and how the ambulance queues we experienced in December during the Flu and COVID spike impacted on their everyday working. It is easy to miss how the impact in one department flows into other departments in really challenging logistical moves.

I heard about the positive impact of a business case that increased the nursing numbers to allow more interventional radiology to be undertaken, which has significant benefits for patients and stops referrals to other hospitals.

I also met with Charlotte, who was working as the CT coordinator for the day, a role that was introduced to manage the flow through of patients requiring CT scans. The demands for this service are complicated as there is a list of patients booked to come in electively, and there are scans required for emergency cases. Before the coordinator role was in place, radiographers were constantly disturbed to manage this flow while undertaking scans. This was inefficient and provided a safety risk as they would be diverted from the other tasks they were undertaking. This is now a much smoother process, and Charlotte earned her wages that day as there were three trauma cases from ED to manage .

It was a really interesting afternoon, and I would like to thank the team for the warm welcome they gave me.

10 March 2023