{"id":20721,"date":"2026-03-28T11:00:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T11:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financetrendreport.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/28\/pregnant-women-and-cancer-patients-at-risk-from-sonographer-shortage\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T11:00:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T11:00:27","slug":"pregnant-women-and-cancer-patients-at-risk-from-sonographer-shortage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financetrendreport.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/28\/pregnant-women-and-cancer-patients-at-risk-from-sonographer-shortage\/","title":{"rendered":"Pregnant women and cancer patients at risk from sonographer shortage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pregnant women and cancer patients could face \u201clife-threatening\u201d delays because of a worsening shortage of sonographers, experts warn.<\/p>\n

The vacancy rate for sonographers is 24.2% across England, rising to 38.2% in some areas, according to the Society of Radiographers (SoR).<\/p>\n

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In addition, one in every 13 (7.6%) sonographers are planning to retire within the next year, the census found.<\/p>\n

Sonographers carry out ultrasound scans which are essential to pregnancy care and are also used to diagnose cancer<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Pregnant women undergo scans when their baby is 12 weeks old and again at 20 weeks.<\/p>\n

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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 \u201cexpense of those other services\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHospitals try their very best to get the three-month and five-month antenatal screening scans done on time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when there aren\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cDepartments end up struggling to fit in patients who need these emergency scans.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ms Thompson said ultrasound also played a role in cancer diagnosis, with a patient\u2019s \u201cfirst investigation\u201d often being an ultrasound.<\/p>\n

Follow up care after treatment \u201coften takes the form of regular ultrasound scans\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government\u2019s recent cancer plan spoke about increasing testing and reducing waiting lists,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut sonography is one of the beginning points for people being diagnosed with cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the current workforce shortfall, it\u2019s going to be very, very hard to decrease waiting times.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if cancers aren\u2019t picked up when they should be, that can have an effect on the patient\u2019s outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

The highest vacancy rates for sonographers were in the South East of England, where almost two in five posts are vacant (38.2%).<\/p>\n

There is also a 34.6% shortfall in London, and three in 10 positions in the North West are vacant (30%).<\/p>\n

In the North East and Yorkshire there is a lesser shortfall of 11%, the SoR said.<\/p>\n

Ms Thompson said training new sonographers \u201ctakes quite a while, so increasing numbers can\u2019t be done very quickly\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that numbers are dropping shows that the number of sonographers being trained isn\u2019t keeping up with demand and hasn\u2019t kept up for a long time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She said the government\u2019s plans to improve health<\/strong> care, through the anticipated release of its NHS workforce plan and recent cancer plan, would be undone by staff shortages.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t say that you\u2019re going to invest in all these new scanners and open all these community diagnostic centres unless you\u2019ve thought about the professionals who are going to conduct the scans and provide patient care,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: \u201cWe 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pregnant women and cancer patients could face \u201clife-threatening\u201d 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":20722,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financetrendreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financetrendreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financetrendreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financetrendreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financetrendreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financetrendreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financetrendreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financetrendreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financetrendreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}