NHS Adds 125 Scanners and AI Imaging to Deliver One Million Extra Tests a Year
The NHS in England is carrying out about one million more CT and MRI scans a year than in March 2024, according to NHS England data published on Tuesday. The increase follows the addition of 125 scanners and the introduction of artificial intelligence software that shortens individual examinations. The Department of Health and Social Care said the aim is to diagnose cancer and other serious conditions sooner, so that treatment can start earlier.
The figures cover March 2024 to March 2026 and are drawn from NHS England's 2025/26 National Imaging Data Collection. The department said every month of 2026 so far has set a record for diagnostic activity, and that the diagnostic waiting list fell in three of the five months since April. It added that the elective care waiting list is down by more than 250,000 since July 2024 and that cancer waiting times are better than a year ago, although the release did not set out the underlying cancer waiting time figures.
CT and MRI scans are used to find lung, brain, breast and prostate cancers, and the department argues that more machines allow more patients to be tested while a tumour is still treatable. Earlier diagnosis widens the treatment options available, Professor Peter Johnson, NHS England's national clinical director for cancer, said, and shortens a wait for results that he described as anxious for patients.
Most of the new capacity sits outside traditional hospital wards. Of the 125 machines, 107 were placed in community diagnostic centres, with the remaining 18 installed elsewhere in the health service. Those centres carried out nearly 2.2 million CT and MRI scans in the 12 months to March 2026, an increase of one million on the 12 months to March 2024.
The Manchester and Trafford Community Diagnostic Centre, which cost £19.2 million and opened on 29 October, is presented by the government as an example of that model. The programme moves routine testing to sites closer to where patients live, away from acute hospital buildings that also handle emergency and inpatient care.
Software is the second part of the expansion. AI acceleration tools allow an MRI scanner to produce a high-quality image from less raw data, which reduces the time each patient spends in the machine. The NHS website puts the length of an MRI scan at between 15 minutes and an hour, depending on the body part examined. According to the department, services using the technology carry out on average 14% more scans while maintaining image quality.
The software is installed on 54% of compatible NHS MRI scanners. Every trust in England is to be offered the chance to upgrade compatible machines by 2029, and the department estimates that a full rollout would allow existing equipment to deliver up to 162,000 more scans a year without new hardware.
Karin Smyth, the Minister of State for Health, said the government was expanding capacity "in the face of record demand" and using new technology to help more people get tests and care. Ministers have framed the programme as part of a wider effort to reduce waiting lists, and the Labour manifesto promised to double the number of CT and MRI scanners over the course of a parliament. The release did not say how the 125 additional machines compare with that pledge.
The Royal College of Radiologists welcomed the investment. Its president, Dr Stephen Harden, said demand for scans is rising and that the equipment and the workforce must both be in place for patients to be scanned, diagnosed and treated efficiently and safely. Each scan produces images that a radiologist must report on, so the number of scans the NHS can complete depends in part on the number of staff able to interpret them. The government release gave no figures for radiologist or radiographer numbers.
The figures were supplied by the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England, and the underlying imaging data collection was due to be published on the same morning.
