\n<\/p>\n
In your article (Record number of people waiting for NHS diagnostic tests in England, 7 June), you quote Marlen Suller of Magentus saying that the solution to ever-increasing diagnostic waiting lists is for the NHS to \u201cmake better use of existing capacity, test patients faster, give them clearer information and use financial incentives to drive improvement\u201d.<\/p>\n
This implies that diagnostic radiographers \u2013 the NHS professionals who carry out diagnostic imaging tests \u2013 are simply not working hard enough, or that they would work longer hours if they were offered financial incentive to do so.<\/p>\n
This is, at best, a naive misrepresentation of the actual situation. In March 2026, radiographers carried out 2.07m diagnostic imaging tests \u2013 the highest number of tests recorded in one month so far.<\/p>\n
Radiographers are conducting more tests than ever \u2013 despite the fact that the average vacancy rate for radiographers is now 15% and some departments\u2019 vacancy rates are much higher. Radiographers already work overtime to try to meet patient demand \u2013 there are, quite simply, no hours left to work safely.<\/p>\n
Government attention has been focused on abolishing NHS England and reorganising regional integrated care boards. The alarming side-effect of this is that we\u2019ve seen recruitment freezes in NHS trusts across the country. Many imaging services are shockingly understaffed \u2013 and yet trusts are not recruiting to fill the vacant posts. Radiography graduates are leaving university and struggling to find jobs \u2013 despite the fact that there are chronic shortages of radiographers in hospitals across the country.<\/p>\n
We need a credible government workforce plan, and we\u2019re still waiting for one to materialise. Existing capacity can only be stretched so far \u2013 already, our members tell us that they are burning out and leaving the NHS altogether. Without investment in more radiographers, NHS waiting lists will continue to rise inexorably. And it\u2019s the patients who suffer as a result. In your article (Record number of people waiting for NHS diagnostic tests in England, 7 June), you quote Marlen Suller of Magentus saying that the solution to ever-increasing diagnostic waiting lists is for the NHS to \u201cmake better use of existing capacity, test patients faster, give them clearer information and use financial incentives to drive<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[24769,5481,3483,1229,76,7242],"class_list":{"0":"post-50357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-diagnostic","9":"tag-lists","10":"tag-long","11":"tag-nhs","12":"tag-test","13":"tag-waiting"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Richard Evans<\/strong>
CEO, Society and College of Radiographers<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"