A TOP Oxford cancer doctor has said new scanners in Swindon will be worse than those installed in the university town.

Swindon's Great Western Hospital is in line to get two of the PET-CT scanning machines under a new NHS England contract.

However, until a fixed unit can be built it is expected that private firm InHealth would operate the hi-tech machinery, which produces detailed 3D images of a patient's tumour, from a mobile facility in a car park. That fixed unit is not expected to be built until 2023/24.

The Guardian has reported comments to Oxford MPs from Adrian Harris, professor of medical oncology at the University of Oxford, warning that cancer patients having a PET-CT scan in Swindon would have a poorer experience than those in Oxford. Patients "will have a two-tier system, one in hospital car parks with poor access machines.

"The new scanners at Oxford are 10 times more sensitive than mobile ones."

Swindon is set to get two new PET-CT units, based at GWH, scanning up to 20 patients a day. Two other units would be installed at a hospital in Milton Keynes.

A report prepared by NHS England for Oxfordshire County Council’s health scrutiny committee said of the plans: “This ensures that the services will be delivered from a network of acute hospital sites and will enable inpatients on all three sites, rather than solely at the Churchill site, to benefit from PET-CT scans without the need of hospital transportation.”