Wellington Hospital risks losing right to train junior radiologists unless urgent improvements made

By Phil Pennington of RNZ

Wellington Hospital is on notice it could lose its right to train junior radiologist doctors unless it urgently cuts their workload and improves supervision.

Its rating for training has plummeted from A to the lowest level, D. This denotes “multiple significant issues seriously impacting quality of training”, according to the independent reviewers at the College of Radiologists.

Wellington Hospital, a national centre for training, has until March to fix the problems or lose its right to train about a dozen juniors, a blow to the whole country’s capacity in a vital speciality.

Wellington Hospital's rating for training radiologists has fallen to the lowest level, a D rating. Photo / RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

The prospect of succeeding with an urgent fix looks challenging, with the unit having lost its clinical leader and various senior doctors and technicians.

The downgrade is the latest in a series of shocks this year to specialist medical services falling below standard.

When Dunedin Hospital lost its accreditation to train junior cancer doctors earlier in the year because it lacked enough seniors to supervise them, the senior doctors’ union warned other areas of medical care around the country could face a similar fate.

The review of Wellington Hospital found it fell short of compliance in eight out of 12 areas. After-hours workloads were sometimes high and a strain on trainees; the number of senior doctors was inadequate and teaching was an extra pressure; supervision of trainees above the starting level was too patchy; and there was a lack of training in some specialised areas.

The review noted doctors were having to draw up rosters because of a lack of administration staff to help with that.

Radiologists specialise in using scans such as MRIs, CTs and ultrasounds to diagnose disease and injury.

Because Wellington Hospital is partly tackling long waiting lists by outsourcing a lot of scans to private providers, this was skewing what the trainees got to do, the review found.

Auckland Hospital turned around a D rating within weeks earlier this year to rise to a C, but it had fewer and more straightforward improvements to make.

Wellington has a much longer list of fixes to address, including a recommendation that it should hire more specialists to do the training.

However, the hospital is heading into the new year losing radiology staff, rather than gaining them.

The flow of radiologists to Australia and to a growing private sector in New Zealand, where the pay is better and the pressure is not so high, is a problem Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand has failed to counter.

Te Whatu Ora was approached for comment on Wednesday but is yet to respond.

- RNZ