Pregnant women and cancer patients could face “life-threatening” delays because of a worsening shortage of sonographers, experts warn.
The vacancy rate for sonographers is 24.2% across England, rising to 38.2% in some areas, according to the Society of Radiographers (SoR).
In addition, one in every 13 (7.6%) sonographers are planning to retire within the next year, the census found.
Sonographers carry out ultrasound scans which are essential to pregnancy care and are also used to diagnose cancer.
Pregnant women undergo scans when their baby is 12 weeks old and again at 20 weeks.
Katie Thompson, SoR president and a practising sonographer, said shortages forced hospitals to pull in practitioners from other areas to keep the antenatal services going at the “expense of those other services”.
“Hospitals try their very best to get the three-month and five-month antenatal screening scans done on time,” she said.
“But when there aren’t enough staff, prioritising those scans has a knock-on effect on more urgent later foetal growth scans, which in some cases need to be done within 24 or 36 hours.
“Departments end up struggling to fit in patients who need these emergency scans.”
Ms Thompson said ultrasound also played a role in cancer diagnosis, with a patient’s “first investigation” often being an ultrasound.
Follow up care after treatment “often takes the form of regular ultrasound scans”, she said.
“The government’s recent cancer plan spoke about increasing testing and reducing waiting lists,” she said.
“But sonography is one of the beginning points for people being diagnosed with cancer.
“With the current workforce shortfall, it’s going to be very, very hard to decrease waiting times.
“And if cancers aren’t picked up when they should be, that can have an effect on the patient’s outcome.”
The highest vacancy rates for sonographers were in the South East of England, where almost two in five posts are vacant (38.2%).
There is also a 34.6% shortfall in London, and three in 10 positions in the North West are vacant (30%).
In the North East and Yorkshire there is a lesser shortfall of 11%, the SoR said.
Ms Thompson said training new sonographers “takes quite a while, so increasing numbers can’t be done very quickly”.
“The fact that numbers are dropping shows that the number of sonographers being trained isn’t keeping up with demand and hasn’t kept up for a long time,” she said.
She said the government’s plans to improve health care, through the anticipated release of its NHS workforce plan and recent cancer plan, would be undone by staff shortages.
“You can’t say that you’re going to invest in all these new scanners and open all these community diagnostic centres unless you’ve thought about the professionals who are going to conduct the scans and provide patient care,” she said.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We recognise the pressures facing diagnostic services, including the sonography workforce, and we are taking action to ensure the NHS has the skilled staff it needs to meet rising demand and deliver timely care to patients.
“We have already taken action to expand services for patients, rolling out new community diagnostic centres and expanding opening hours, keeping patients away from busy hospitals and cared for in their local communities.”