Royal College of Radiologists national audit evaluating the provision of imaging in the severely injured patient and compliance with national guidelines.

ABSTRACT

AIM: To evaluate the provision of imaging in severely injured patients and com pliance with national guidelines. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two data collection tools were sent to all Royal College of Radiologist audit leads in radiology departments with an emergency department throughout the UK. The first focused on configuration of radiology departments, number of patients scanned for major trauma and service configuration for major trauma. The second focused on reporting times for 30 patients scanned for major trauma. RESULTS: Eighty-five out of 191 (45%) eligible departments responded 16 (19%) from major trauma centres, 52 (61%) from trauma units and 17 (20%) from other hospitals with an emergency department. Data were collected for 2,161 scans 450 from major trauma centres, 1,400 from trauma units and 311 from emergency departments. Seven hundred and eighty-four (36%) scans were performed in hours and 1361 (63%) out of hours. Two hundred and forty (11%) scans had a primary survey report documented, of which 53 (22%) were unavailable to clinicians after 20 minutes. Time to final consultant report was within 1 hour for 1,033 (48%) scans and within 2 hours for an additional 540 (25%) scans. 34/85 (40%) departments have registrars first on call for major trauma who report scans out of hours and have a consultant final report the next day. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights significant deficiencies in care and imaging of severely injured patients within major trauma centres and trauma units. Infrastructure and staffing have been underfunded and under resourced to meet rapidly changing best practice requirements in the management of major trauma.