Birmingham PETCT service joins growing network

Alliance Medical services the phase one and part of phase two NHS England national PETCT contract and is continuing to add capacity to its UK-wide network of scanning sites.

In September last year it opened a PETCT centre in Newcastle at the Freeman Hospital, which was followed in November by a modular centre at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to provide state-of-the-art scanning facilities.

This May, Alliance Medical introduced a mobile PETCT solution at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust to further increase capacity and improve access for patients in and around the Birmingham area. This is in addition to existing sites at the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust at the New Cross Hospital site.

Alliance Medical has continued to support, develop and host a national network of PETCT reporters along with a combined clinical governance group to provide robust audit and clinical networking. This national network allows reporting radiologists in PETCT to support each other, compare and seek guidance from peers on a range of issues.

The company also continues to support a number of research trials in PETCT, both with independent R&D organisations and with NHS trusts. These trials are in key development areas across a number of cancer pathways, such as prostate cancer, but also in dementia diagnosis.

Meanwhile, Alliance Medical Radiopharmacy has invested in an extensive upgrade programme across three of its main production sites at Keele, Preston and Sutton.

It expects to begin commercial production at its newly-refurbished site in Dinnington in the coming months. This houses an 18MeV cyclotron and a 24MeV ‘super’ cyclotron capable of much greater yields and of producing novel isotopes. This includes the ability to produce cyclotron-based technetium-99m.

Picture: Birmingham City Hospital principal physicist Joe O’Brien, Alliance Medical head of PETCT statics Mike Chevan, Alliance Medical’s Rajesh Modha and Vicky Yearwood and hospital head of physics and nuclear medicine Bill Thomson.

Published on page 32 of the June 2020 issue of RAD Magazine.