National Radiology QI Programme: The publication of explicit national radiology report turnaround time (TAT) targets in 2025 marked a significant milestone for the NRQI Programme, replacing the previously recommended targets. However, despite progress, the shortage of resources to meet the growing diagnostic demand and increasing complexity remains a major concern, workload increased by 9% in 2025 in comparison to 2024.
A detailed QI data review was commenced in 2024 by the programme management team, with the support of the NIMIS team, HSE Technology and Transformation, ICT system vendors, and selected participating sites, identifying a number of discrepancies. A detailed review was undertaken throughout 2025 to identify the root causes of these issues and to implement corrective actions, resulting in significant improvements in data quality.
Key Report Findings, 6th Annual National Data Report
The NRQI Programme reported a 9% increase in workload, exceeding 3.5 million cases. All 41 participating NQAIS-sites provided report turnaround time (TAT) data in 2024, of which 25 met or exceeded the recommended target of 90% reports completed within the specified time representing improvements from 2023 and 2022. The number of peer reviews recorded by the sites remains low. The programme acknowledges that technical challenges within local information systems, rising workloads, increasing case complexity, staff turnover, and the outsourcing of reporting activities, are likely continuing to contribute to the relatively low number of recorded peer reviews. Analysis of 2024 data indicate that, while the number of alerts recorded for urgent and critical findings also remained low and comparable to 2023, there was a 15.6% increase in records of unexpected clinically significant (U-CS) alerts. As in previous years, owners were assigned to key recommendations arising from findings presented in this report. This report marked the first time that Regional Executive Officers (REOs) were assigned as owners of specific recommendations, alongside hospitals’ local management in relevant areas.
The programme added a spotlight section reviewing the upload of data relating to multidisciplinary meetings (MDM) locally, highlighting the importance of these meetings in terms of QI in radiology and as an opportunity for peer learning, identification of discrepancies, and reinforcement of high standards in clinical practice.
The full report will be published in November 2026. Some highlights include.
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48/51 public and voluntary hospitals.
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Two additional public hospitals in the process of joining the programme
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5 Key Quality Indicators reported on annually plus workload.
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National data processed in 2025 and reported by the NRQI Programme in 2026:
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3,547,828 cases (↑ 0.3% on 2024)
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572,150 CT (↑3.5% on 2024)
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401,034 US (↑2.5% on 2024)
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9,732 PET (↑ 19.3% on 2024)
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76 clinicians involved across the country (consultant radiologists and diagnostic radiographers, a 24% from 2024).
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7th annual national data report to be published in November 2026.