Small thread on the Kerry radiology review - looking at the numbers, as broken down here by @GAodha jrnl.ie/4379135
The review - the biggest radiology lookback every carried out here - looked atl 46,000 radiology scans. All were examined by ONE consultant radiologist between March 2016 and July 2017. That's 46,000 scans in 15 months. Well over a hundred a day.
Those scans were of 26,754 individual patients.
44,831 (or 97%) were given a Score 1 - ie, there was agreement with the original report or a minor abnormality of no ongoing clinical significance.
1,298 were given a Score 2 - ie This related to an unreported finding that was unlikely to be of clinical significance. They did require a review by a Clinical Subgroup, and if necessary, patients were asked back for another scan.
105 scans (0.23%) were given a Score 3 - ie This required immediate communication to a Clinical Subgroup as the previously unreported finding was of potential or definitive significant clinical concern.
Of those in the 2 and 3 scoring categories, 422 patients were identified to be recalled. From that group, 59 required a follow-up or investigation. 10 were sent to another hospital for specialist care.
If you include all those in the 2 and 3 groups as being problematic (even the ones that didn't need follow-up), the % rate is 3.03%.
According to a 2013 report on the factors contributing to diagnostic errors in radiology, the real-time errors in daily radiology practice are an average of 3% – 5%. ajronline.org/doi/10.2214/AJ…
None of these numbers take from the horrific situation that families have found themselves in but they do need to be reported in context.
The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland is expected to issue a statement later today. Will be interesting to see what they say.
And here's that statement from the @RCSI_Irl 
"All Irish public radiology depts are under pressure as resources of staff & equipment aren't adequate for the demands placed on them. These problems are most acute in small departments such as UHK, where burdens such as on-call duty are spread between a small no. of consultants"
"These depts frequently have difficulty in recruiting consultant radiologists and may be over-reliant on locum support and outsourcing."
