PACS now used in every English trust, DH says

Digital imaging technology is now being used in every trust in England, the Department of Health has announced.

Picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) was promised as part of the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) by the government in April 2004.

The pledge given by then health minister, John Hutton, to deliver the systems within three years has been met and is counted as one of the big successes of the national programme.

The final trust to receive a PACS as part of NPfIT was Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust on 10 December 2007, marking the completion of implementations in 127 trusts across England. (Around 50 trusts already had PACS before the central initiative was announced.)

Health secretary Alan Johnson said: “The benefits of the introduction of PACS in terms of improved patient care are massive. This innovative technology speeds up and improves the accuracy of diagnosis, saves time and improves the quality of care.

“Trusts are reporting that the time taken for radiologists and radiographers to issue reports to clinicians have typically been halved from more than six days to less than three and these report turnaround times continue to fall with some hospitals reporting all imaging within 24 hours.”

PACS medical director, radiologist, Erika Denton, said: “We all recognise the role that PACS is playing in improving patient care. Prior to the advent of NPfIT it had taken 50 trusts some 14 years to implement PACS. But in the last three years, the pace has accelerated massively; the speed and scope of the roll-out has been an incredible achievement.

"It’s a credit to the way that NHS Connecting for Health, strategic health authorities, trusts and IT service providers have worked together.”

External praise has been fulsome, too. In recent months the PACS programme received the accolade of ‘Public Sector Project of the Year’ at Computing Magazine’s ‘Awards of Excellence’, and the ‘Healthcare IT award’ at the Health Business Awards.

Some big challenges remain for PACS, notably the issue of data sharing. The technology offers the promise of sharing images within and between health communities for wide range of purposes including referrals, expert opinions, teaching and multi-disciplinary teamwork.

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