AN AUDIT OF A RADIOGRAPHER BASED ULTRASOUND SERVICE

A general ultrasound service has evolved over several years. Radiograp hers undertake the general ultrasound lists, and show the request card and the hard copy films to a radiologist prior to the patient leaving the department. Whilst it is generally accepted for radiographers to carry the burden of obstetric scanning, this is less so for general wo rk. This audit is of a sample of 100 patients out of the general ultra sound lists. These patients underwent the standard service examination by a radiographer and subsequent report by the radiologist. They also had a separate examination and report by an independent radiologist. 42 patients were agreed to have normal findings. 75 diagnoses or obser vations were made in the remaining 58 patients. Discrepancies arose be tween the two limbs of the audit in 20 of the observations. Review of the hard copy films and repeat scanning of patients where necessary id entified one relevant error by the auditing radiologist and three rele vant errors by the standard service. Whilst errors are made both by ra diologists and radiographers, it is concluded that the existing radiog rapher based ultrasound service provides a satisfactory level of accur acy.