The ultrasound nobody booked
Your GP fills in an ultrasound request form for the local private imaging centre, the secretary emails it, and the patient is told the centre will call. The centre's booking team is waiting for the patient to ring them. The patient is waiting for the centre. Two weeks pass.
When a scan does happen, the report comes back as a PDF to the clinic's main email, sometimes addressed to the GP who requested it and sometimes just to the clinic. If that GP only works Tuesdays, the report can sit unread for days while the patient keeps checking their phone.
Where the handover breaks
Imaging is a relay race with no baton. Each centre has its own request form, its own preferred route and its own idea of who makes the first call. Some accept emailed forms, some want a portal, some want the patient to book online with a request reference. Your staff remember which is which, until someone new starts.
On the way back, reports arrive as attachments, faxes converted to email, or portal notifications that need a login. None of them are tied to the request that caused them, so there is no easy way to spot the request that never produced a report.
The cost of stalled imaging
| Stage | What goes wrong | Who feels it |
|---|---|---|
| Request sent | Wrong form or route for that centre | Secretary, re-sending |
| Booking | Each side waits for the other to call | Patient, waiting |
| Scan done | Report goes to a general inbox | Requesting GP, unaware |
| Report filed | Not linked to the request | Whoever has to prove it arrived |
Patients paying privately for speed notice this more than anything. The scan itself may be quick, but the gaps either side of it are where the time goes.
How we track imaging from request to report
- A request log records each imaging request: patient, modality, centre, requesting GP and the date sent. It can be filled from the practice system's letters or from a quick form.
- A centre directory holds each provider's current request route and booking rules, so the right form goes the right way, and new staff do not have to guess.
- The patient gets a message explaining who will call whom, with the centre's booking number where the patient is expected to book.
- Incoming reports are picked up from your inbox or document folder, matched to the open request, and routed to the requesting GP's task list, with a fallback GP if they are not in that week.
- Any request without a confirmed booking, or without a report after the interval you set, lands on a follow-up list.
Reading and acting on the report is entirely clinical work. The system only makes sure the report reaches a named doctor and that someone notices when one has not come back.
What your secretaries get
One screen showing every imaging request by stage. Fewer calls from patients asking what is happening, because they were told at the start who books. Reports that land with a named GP rather than a shared inbox. When someone asks whether a report came back, the answer is on the screen.
It also gives you a clearer picture of your imaging partners. If one centre is consistently slow to book or slow to report, the log shows it, and that is useful when you decide where to send patients next.
Recognise any of these?
- Patients ring to ask whether their scan has been booked
- Each imaging centre's process lives in one person's memory
- Reports arrive in a shared inbox and wait for the right GP
- You cannot list requests still waiting for a report
- Staff re-send forms because the first went the wrong way