Plans for second MRI scanner at Grange Hospital

A request for £2.5 million is to be made to the Welsh Government to fund a second MRI scanner at Gwent’s biggest hospital.

During planning for the Grange Hospital, in Cwmbran, it was agreed to provide only one scanner but space for a second in the future was included. 

Health chiefs have now agreed to move ahead with providing the second scanner as they have been leasing a mobile machine to cope with increased demand. 

Leanne Watkins, the chief operating officer of Gwent’s Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, said providing a second scanner is crucial for patient safety. 

She told the board: “It is a significant patient safety risk if it fails.” 

Her report said reliance on one scanner at the 450 bed hospital is a potential “single point of failure” as any breakdown would require acutely ill patients to be transferred to other sites for urgent scans. 

The MRI scanner at the Grange is in use 12 hours a day for seven days a week and all of the other MRI scanners across the health board are at full capacity. 

The board has been leasing a mobile scanner, located at Ebbw Vales’s Ysbyty Aneurin Bevan, to meet a target of carrying out scans within eight weeks. 

The budget used for leasing the mobile scanner will be allocated to cover the running costs of the new, second scanner at the Grange which will operate Mondays to Fridays from 7.30am to 8pm and provide capacity for an additional 6,000 scans which will meet the eight week target. 

Use of the second scanner over seven days, which is anticipated due to rising diagnostic demand for MRI scans, would have to be planned through the board’s annual capacity and modelling programme. 

Ms Watkins reminded the board the current scanner is four years old and has been in use since the hospital opened in 2020 and is “shortly due for replacement”. The board has a budget for the regular maintenance and replacement of such equipment. 

She told the Wednesday, September 25 meeting the Welsh Government is likely to “look favourably” on an application from the board for it to meet the capital costs, of up to £2.5m, for the second scanner. 

A single contractor will be appointed to design, build and fully equip the scanner which it’s anticipated will have reduced overall costs by nearly £500,000.