Salford Royal Hospital is now live with Sectra Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), for reporting and diagnostic imaging.
Going live with the system provides reporters and radiologists at Salford Royal the ability to view and report on imaging studies, “rather than having to navigate separate systems to provide reports that inform patient care, diagnoses and treatment,” the hospital stated.
The programme forms part of a wider roll-out across Greater Manchester throughout 2025 and 2026, along with other sites in the Northern Care Alliance, joining the Greater Manchester Imaging Network who are using the platform to “view, analyse and interrogate millions of patient scans including x-rays, CT scans, ultrasounds, and MRI”.
Divisional managing director for imaging at the Northern Care Alliance, Christian Kasmeridis said: “This is a great opportunity for teams to come together to improve the patient experience and journey, by bringing our radiological services together across the Northern Care Alliance footprint. The feedback from the reporting radiological workforce has been extremely encouraging and the solution has been implemented by the dedicated staff in the department because of their commitment to improving patient care.”
Iinnovation in the Greater Manchester region
Last October, the NCA published its first digital strategy which introduced plans up to 2030 in areas including self-care, remote monitoring and access to records. The strategy focuses in particular on the next three years, with the aim of establishing the foundations for a “safe and more effective NCA”. These foundations are to be achieved primarily through the implementation of a single EPR solution across all acute hospitals, with the programme set to commence during 2024 with a targeted go-live in 2027. Additionally, NCA plans to establish a single community services EPR intending to strengthen NCA’s connectivity to its places; this programme aims to commence in 2025. Once these foundations have been achieved, the trust expects to gain “greater clarity regarding the transformational opportunities that exist and will form the basis of an iterative and evolving digital strategy”.
Health Innovation Manchester recently announced that over 60 Well Pharmacy sites will have access to the region’s shared care record, with the aim to support a reduction in telephone calls to primary care and supply access to patient information for pharmacies.
In January, Royal Bolton Hospital introduced digital imaging for post mortem analysis, with the aim to reduce the need for invasive post mortems and release bodies to families sooner. Now post mortems can be carried out in a “computerised environment” rather than by scalpel, with reports completed “within a matter of hours instead of days”.
