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Radiography 17 (2011) 1

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Radiography

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/radi

Editorial

All change again

One of the challenges of writing an editorial for a quarterly jour-nal is that the time of writing is some time before the publicationdate. The particular challenge is selecting a subject which remainstopical and relevant at the time of publication. However, one suchtopic that will be with us for the next few years and beyond isthe United Kingdom’s (UK) Government’s Spending Review whichwas presented to Parliament in October 2010.

Clearly, there will be direct and indirect consequences forboth the health and education sectors. However, the Govern-ment has stated that front line services in health will be pro-tected with the Department of Health stating that overall NHSspending will increase by 0.4% in real terms over the period ofthe Spending Review but with a 17% decrease in capitalspending and administration costs to be reduced by 33%; thelatter to be reinvested to support service delivery.1 This is inter-esting, everyone wants to see unnecessary bureaucracy reducedand wasteful processes eliminated but for every front-lineworker there is a network of support staff fulfilling a wholerange of tasks necessary to deliver services to patients. A crucialquestion is from which part of the service will the administra-tive costs be saved? In the all too frequent changes we have wit-nessed in the NHS where the aim has been to make the serviceleaner and more efficient the same work has ended up beingdone often by the same people working for different organisa-tions. So what will be the difference this time? While invest-ment in front-line services must be welcomed if it means thatthe administrative burden is shifted from support staff tofront-line professionals we will be entitled to ask what savingswill that bring?

However, it was pleasing to see the work of radiographers rec-ognised in the spending review and in a statement from the Depart-ment of Health encouraging the NHS to train more radiographers toreport. This is an explicit recognition of the excellent work thatradiographers have been doing over the past 15 years or so inthis field of practice. Estimates are that trainingmore radiographersto report will save £7.9million annually. It is claimed that the savingwill arise from radiologists being able to focus on ‘more compli-cated images, CT and MRI scans’.1 It is not clear at this stage how

1078-8174/$ – see front matter � 2010 The College of Radiographers. Published by Elsedoi:10.1016/j.radi.2010.11.006

the saving will accrue, does it mean fewer radiologists, fewerradiographers butmore reporting and a greater number of assistantpractitioners or some other combination? Again, we will have toawait the detail with bated breath. Nevertheless, it is amazingthat to think that only a few months ago radiographer reportingwas subject to unwarranted criticism which featured in my edito-rial in August 2010.2 Fortunately, the criticism appeared not toget much credence and commonsense and evidence prevailedand now the Department of Health are taking a proactive standon radiographer reporting.

I announced in my last editorial the appointment of threeassociate editors, I am also pleased to announce the appointmentof five new members to the Editorial Board, Erika Denton, JudithKelly, Robert Law, Donna Routsis and Bev Snaith. In this editionand in the next we are publishing profiles of the new associateeditors and Board members. This month sees the profile of twoof our associate editors Hazel Colyer and Pauline Reeves. Threenew Board members are featured Judith Kelly, Robert Law andErika Denton. At this time I would like to thank the followingfor their contributions Edwin Aird, Alan Castle, David Manningand Riet van der Heide Schoon who have stood down from theBoard.

Turning to this edition there is an interesting guest editorialfrom Charlotte Beardmore who asks some critical questions onthe Implementation of Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy. If youhave a comment to make on this or any other article I will bepleased to hear from you.

References

1. Department of Health. Spending review. Available at: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/MediaCentre/Pressreleases/DH_120676; 2010 [accessed15.11.10].

2. Price R. The past is a foreign country. Radiography 2010;16:169–70.

Richard Price*University of Hertfordshire, School of Health & Emergency Professions,

College Lane, Hatfield, Herts AL5 1HF, United Kingdom* Tel.: þ44 1707284962; fax: þ44 1707281143.

E-mail address: radiographyjournal@sor.org

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