The Queen Elizabeth Hospital said on Monday it has reduced a years-long imaging backlog from about 500 000 studies to fewer than 100 in under six months, after introducing 24-hour teleradiology reporting and accelerating diagnostic turnaround times.

The hospital’s director of clinical and diagnostic services, Corey Forde, told the QEH Pulse radio programme that the introduction of teleradiology services has transformed how imaging studies are reported.

“We embarked on a programme with teleradiography… having persons read your X-rays, but they don’t have to be on site. They’re overseas in the middle of the night… now we have people who are reading them 24/7.”