Ensuring optimal performance for Stepping Hill Hospital’s life-saving radiology department

Stepping Hill Hospital, run by Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, provides emergency, surgical and medical services for over 300,000 people living in the Stockport area as well as East Cheshire and the High Peak in North Derbyshire.

The Hospital’s Radiology Department, headed by Stuart Cooper, Directorate Manager, comprises Consultant Radiologists, Advanced Practitioners specialising in head, MSK, chest x-ray reporting and GI studies, Radiographers, Specialist Nurses, Assistant Practitioners and Radiography Helpers, as well as student and apprenticeship radiographers.

The CT team managed by Lead CT Radiographer, Karen Andrew, is critical to the hospital’s role as a specialist centre within the Greater Manchester region.

To meet the demands of being a regional centre, serving a diverse and growing population, the Hospital has invested significantly in recent years in CT systems from Philips, scanning 70+ patients per day in the emergency department and 50-70 scans per day in the outpatient suite. The Department needed systems that ensured optimal scan quality and consistency, at low doses, and that helped the radiography team process patients as efficiently and comfortably as possible, such as their Incisive system with its bariatric table and large bore, and Smart Workflow which uses AI to reduce patient positioning time and more consistent scan results.

The investment in state-of-the-art CT technology can only be fully realised if the systems are always ready for operation, enabling emergency and planned patient activity to be managed as efficiently as possible. As everywhere in the NHS, Stepping Hill Hospital’s radiology team are often not at full complement but having to cope with a growing volume of patients. Avoiding unplanned downtime of their CT systems is therefore imperative.

Given the time-criticality of the Hospital’s thrombolysis treatment, needing to scan within the golden four-hour window from stroke symptom onset, the radiology team - and their acutely-unwell patients - rely on those systems’ performance for potential life-saving or life-changing outcomes.

When a radiology team is as passionate about delivering the best possible patient care, in the face of demand and resource pressures, as those at Stepping Hill, Philips comprehensive RightFit Uptime is the obvious choice.

Worry-free comprehensive support: Uptime cover provides for continuous monitoring of the live scanners, remote diagnostics of technical issues and remote resolution where possible, and reliable onsite response 8am-8pm seven days a week when needed, plus the reassurance of no unexpected costs for replacement tubes and other system parts.

Responsive engineering coverage: Philips Field and Remote Service Engineers are contracted for weekends, uniquely amongst imaging system manufacturers in the UK, recognising that weekend overtime does not provide the service reliability required to support life-critical systems.

Remote diagnostics & resolution: Live monitoring technology alerts Philips Remote Service Engineer team to any deviation from the norm for more than 100 parameters on the CT system. This allows Philips to identify and resolve issues before they disrupt patient care, often even before the radiologists are aware of a problem, meaning clinic lists and system availability for emergency care are minimally affected. Philips resolves 1/3 of CT systems remotely.

Minimally-disruptive maintenance visits: When remote resolution is not possible, system disruption or downtime is kept to a minimum due to the Remote Service team’s ability to diagnose the cause of issues, without needing to send an engineer to site just to fault-find. Philips fixes 80+% CT systems first time.

Tube reliability: Philips’ vMRC tube quality is such that they guarantee tubes for the life of the CT system*, an industry first. A typical system requires at least three replacement tubes during a 10-year lifetime, requiring up to a week’s downtime each time to allow for parts delivery and fitting. With Philips’ tube reliability that downtime is avoided.

Replacement tubes at no additional cost: In the unlikely event that a replacement tube is needed, under Philips Tube-for-Life Guarantee, it would be replaced at no additional cost. The live system monitoring would flag up any decline in tube performance, allowing for investigation and required maintenance to be planned, minimising impact on clinic lists.

Having responsibility for multiple urgent response services with patients needing timely diagnoses, it is important for the Radiology Department that CT system downtime is a rare occurrence and, if it does happen, to not be prolonged by internal capital-funding approval processes.

Philips Clinical Application Specialists ensure that customers get the most out of their imaging system investment. Lisa Boardman, a former NHS Diagnostic Radiographer Lead, is the Philips Application Specialist who supports Stepping Hill Hospital. “Lisa is a great support for the department, helping to keep the team up-to-date on our Philips scanners, including on-going support for the radiologists in the use and application of spectral scanning.”, said Karen. ”We have also benefitted from 1:1 support from Philips European specialists and Business Unit Clinical Science team, who share learnings from the global Philips community that can benefit us and add to what we do here.”

Stepping Hill Hospital’s overall CT scanning activity is 15% higher than pre-COVID times, but despite this growth in demand and the resourcing challenges, the radiology team have ensured optimal patient outcomes for the Trust as evidenced in nationally published datasets.