Digital X-ray plan hits halfway in London and south

But progress slower in the rest of the country

Half of hospitals in London and the south of England have now been equipped with new digital X-ray systems.

But while some parts of the country are benefiting from the new technology, others are lagging behind.

NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) said 50 per cent of trusts - 33 - now have the Picture Archiving and Communications System (Pacs) deployed. Pacs allows X-rays and scans to be stored electronically and viewed on screens, rather than on the old-style light boxes.

CfH and its suppliers have now rolled out 22 Pacs in the southern cluster and 11 Pacs in the London cluster.

This brings the number of acute trusts using Pacs in the London and southern clusters to 51, as 18 sites in the clusters already had Pacs in place.

In the southern cluster, Fujitsu is rolling out Pacs from GE, while in London BT is rolling out a Philips system.

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The majority of Pacs deployments have been in these two clusters - only nine deployments out of 42 have been made elsewhere, according to CfH figures.

NHS CfH claims it will complete "the bulk" of Pacs deployments by March 2007, with deployments complete by the end of the year. It said more than 45 million images have been stored on the data store and some 2.7 million patient examinations undertaken.

Dr Kishore Reddy, clinical lead for Pacs in the southern cluster, said the system means fewer wasted appointments or postponed operations due to lost or poor quality images, and shorter waiting times to receive results.

Reddy said the costs saved from not using film have also been "substantial".