The fifth of 15 bespoke CT scanners and relocatable building units, designed and manufactured in the UK by Canon Medical Systems as part of NHS England’s COVID-19 recovery plan, has been delivered to Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. The unit has been positioned in a car park outside A&E and is separate from the main hospital building, giving reassurance to outpatients that they can be seen safely despite concerns about the ongoing pandemic.
Hospital deputy head of radiology Graham Clark said: “Keeping a completely clean, ‘green’ CT room free for outpatients that is separate from the main imaging department means that our cancer or other immunosuppressed patients feel more comfortable attending CT appointments. It gives reassurance that they don’t need to come into the main hospital.”
Canon Medical Systems UK managing director Mark Hitchman added: “The 15 COVID-19 response CT Scan Units provided to NHS England are the result of extremely quick design and manufacturing here in the UK. It took just eight weeks, from order to build completion, for the first unit to be deployed.
“Early reports are that the COVID-19 response CT Scan Units have been invaluable in providing additional scanning capacity for hospitals to catch up on backlogs, to give extra imaging capacity to address delays caused by enhanced cleaning times between patients, and for winter pressures alongside a second COVID-19 wave.”
Picture: The interior of a Canon Medical COVID-19 response CT Scan Unit.
Published on page 22 of the February 2021 issue of RAD Magazine.