Darent Valley Hospital opens bespoke, purpose built reporting hub and a newly refurbished Interventional Radiology (IR) suite

On Friday 11 November, Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust’s, CEO, Jonathan Wade, proudly opened our bespoke, purpose-built Radiology Reporting Hub and the newly refurbished Interventional Radiology (IR) Suite.

The new state-of-the art Radiology Reporting Hub is a purpose-built solution which helps to deliver the best working environment for radiologists and radiographers. The Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) and College of have strict guidelines around the lighting, level of disturbance, ambience and acoustic noise levels, so the pods now enable our team to report in the optimum conditions as set out by the professional bodies.

Each pod is ergonomically designed and has parity height adjustable desks, independent spot lighting and ambient lighting so that each reporter can have an individual working environment tailored to their own needs.

The former x-ray room, which was decommissioned as part of a digitisation project, now has a total of 10 pods. Seven are used for ‘cold’ reporting and three are for ‘hot’ reporting. It is envisaged that all the emergency scans of the day are reported in these pods.  We believe that these pods are the first of their kind for the region and staff feedback suggests that they are best in class for working environment.

Further benefits include their ability to be moved if there are future radiology developments; the pods can simply be taken down and reinstalled elsewhere, avoiding lengthy build projects and wasted materials. It also means that DGT have the future flexibility to move reporting into communal spaces which still provide the reporting conditions of solitary offices. 

The project has been a huge success. Our radiographers are able to carry out their work in a much better environment, allowing them to concentrate and focus on the task in hand with the correct lighting to support them. The space in the room has been maximised without a reduction in quality of work environment.

Nicholas Key, General Radiology Manager at Darent Valley Hospital, is extremely pleased with the final result. He said: “The Radiology Reporting Hub helps us to deliver the best working environment for radiologists and radiographers. It allows them to report in the optimum conditions which are defined by our professional bodies.  I am very happy with the design and implementation of the pods and I believe they have fantastic potential for redeveloping existing work spaces and in the creation of new work spaces within CDCs’”

The hospital also boasts a newly refurbished Interventional Radiology (IR) Suite which hosts bespoke equipment for all IR procedures and fluoroscopy. With ever-increasing workloads for radiology, cancer targets and increased acuity of the conditions of the patient, rapid diagnosis and IR procedures are very important. Together with our Reporting Hub, the new IR suite will help us to provide the best care for our patients.