THE campaign to raise £1.5million for a second MRI scanner at Salisbury District Hospital is well underway, and a hospital consultant has taken the opportunity to explain how it will be used and why it is needed.

Consultant radiologist Shaun McGee has worked in Salisbury for more than 20 years, after training “at a time when the benefits of this scanning technology were only just beginning to be appreciated”.

He said developments in MRI have been “breath-taking”.

MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, is a type of scanning that uses strong magnetic fields to produce detailed images of the inside of the body.

Dr McGee explains: “When tissues are placed in a magnetic field which is rapidly switched on and off the tissues have tiny vibrations, or resonances.

“What the machine does is collect these little signals. We know, for example, that a normal liver will resonate in a particular way, and when it’s abnormal the resonance changes. That is what we’re trained to detect as radiologists.”

Patients who need an MRI scan can be in the machine for between 10 minutes and an hour or more, but Dr McGee said 30 minutes was “a good average”.

“Most patients find having an MRI scan to be no problem at all. For a small number however it can feel a little enclosed” he said. “But our radiographers are brilliant about helping you feel as comfortable as possible in the scanner, they will be in constant chat to you on a two-way intercom and you can have music piped in to earphones to counteract some of the noise.”

The scanner is used hospital-wide, for spinal injuries, cancer care and more.

But Dr McGee said the current machine was going flat-out and more capacity is “undoubtedly needed”.

“It works seven days a week between 12 and 13 hours a day and we are still struggling to keep up with demand,” he said.

It means some Salisbury patients are having to wait longer for scans, or being sent to other hospitals.

Dr McGee said a second scanner would allow patients to stay in Salisbury, receive scans faster from a “cutting edge” machine and allow the hospital to spend time developing newer areas of MRI scanning.

“It’s true to say that MRI can help patients with their illnesses from cradle to grave, in both planned and emergency care settings” he said.

“In 2018 scanning is at the heart of just about every patient pathway and modern imaging techniques are so good and so accurate that the improvements in both speed and accuracy of diagnosis and how this translates into better treatment planning, treatment delivery and outcomes really can’t be ignored any longer.”