£8m imaging equipment replacement scheme begins

One of the biggest equipment replacement programmes at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is set to begin to help improve patient care.

The £8m project replacing vital imaging equipment will see the change-out of four MRI scanners and a CT scanner. A new CT scanner will also be added in the Radiology department to enable the replacement of the existing CT scanner, before providing increased capacity.

The scheme follows ‘Aged Assets’ government funding that was announced last year, as well as benefiting from Adapt and Adopt Covid-19 funding.

Work will begin this week (w/c 9 November), which will first see some reconfiguration of the Radiology department at NNUH to allow for the integration of the new CT scanner.

The current MRI at Cromer and District Hospital will also be decommissioned and craned out of the building on 14 November. Patients in North Norfolk who require an MRI scan will be referred to NNUH for the three month duration until the new machine is operational at Cromer.

The MRI and CT machines that are due to be replaced are more than 13 years old and the replacement programme will take place over the next 10 months. The new equipment will provide a number of benefits, including improved quality of imaging, patient safety improvements, efficiencies, and improved patient and staff experience.

Dr Rayhaan Rahaman, NNUH Chief of Imaging, said: “This significant investment will make a huge difference to patient care with improved imaging and reliability, which will also benefit the Trust with research and training. Having the latest state-of-the-art scanners will help the Trust to recruit and train future radiographers who provide a vital role to help diagnose cancer and a host of other conditions.”

Additional mobile scanners will be used at NNUH, when required, to maintain scanning capacity during the works.

The MRI at Cromer and District Hospital being lifted away on 14 November 2020