Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust: Derriford Hospital

The Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust came into existence in April 1994 and provides medical services for a population of approximately 428,000 in an area comprising the city of Plymouth and western parts of Devon. Derriford is one of the core hospitals in the Peninsula Medical School. It provides acute hospital services for west Devon and parts of east Cornwall. The Trust provides specialist services (neurosurgery, faciomaxillary surgery, plastic surgery, radiotherapy and cardiac surgery) for a population of 1.7 million over a larger area of Devon and Cornwall.

The Radiology Department

Radiology or imaging offers a wide range of scans which are used to diagnose many different conditions. X-ray for example will be able to tell the clinicians whether a patient has fractured a bone. We undertake about 180,000 x-rays every year. More complex scans include whole body images using MRI and CT. 

The department has been working hard to reduce waiting lists and waits for all of our scans are either immediate or up to 12 weeks.

We have about 20 consultant radiologists who are reporting on the results of the scans which have been generated by about 50 trained radiographers