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<p>The Department has taken steps to significantly invest in diagnostics through additional
funding for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computed Tomography capacity across
all National Health Service healthcare settings over this Spending Review period.
This includes the acceleration of the Community Diagnostic Centres programme which
will further release imaging capacity to reduce the waiting times for all patients
including patients with clinical indication of a brain tumour. There has also been
investment in MRI Acceleration technology which will improve the daily throughput
per upgraded MRI scanner by reducing the scan times required per patient and improve
the patient experience by reducing the scan times for patients.</p><p>Improvements
to GP Direct Access pathways will support general practitioners referring directly
for MRI brain scans, where they have concerns about symptoms that could indicate an
incidental finding of a brain tumour. In addition, all patients referred for an imaging
diagnostic scan with the clinical indication of cancer/tumour would be treated as
an urgent cancer referral. These referrals are triaged, appointed and reported within
two weeks of referral.</p>
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