Companies advertising Computerised Tomography (CT) scans as an “MOT” for people who have no relevant symptoms but who are anxious to keep one step ahead of possible illnesses, will see the service they provide become clarified in law.
The Department of Health announced the move, as it accepted all nine of the recommendations that the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) made to it following a study of the services and a wide consultation on them. COMARE looked at the claims these companies make and the safety of their procedures. The Committee recommended that some scans should cease altogether, others should be provided only under clinical protocols agreed by the professions and that providers should relate properly to NHS programmes. Following this, the Department will be formally seeking the Royal College of Radiologists and the Royal College of Physicians to prepare guidance for practitioners based on the balance of risk and benefit involved in the CT scanning procedures concerned. The advice of COMARE rests on a fundamental principle that the benefit to the patient must always outweigh the risks to radiation exposure involved. MOT-style CT scans are offered directly to the public and can be up to 400 times more powerful than a chest X-ray. They are not usually mediated by the patient’s GP and the concern is this balance of risk is currently overlooked. The move will mean self-referred CT scans will be defined as an “Individual Health Assessment”. It will not ban or prohibit any scan but will mean they are clearly brought within the regulatory regime and distinguished from diagnostic scans.
