The annual awards recognise excellence and achievement in Radiography worldwide and this year received nominations from the UK and the USA, through to the Middle East, India and Australasia.

The ROH Imaging team won the Radiology Fellowship of the Year category and the Best NHS Trust for Delivering Radiology Services.

Sandra Millward, Head of Imaging at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, commented on the award wins: “The team are so thrilled to be recognised in the Radiology Awards 2023 – as a department we work as hard as we can for our patients and it’s wonderful for this hard work to be recognised internationally.”

The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital facilitates two Fellowships every year, supporting continued learning experiences in diagnostic radiology in a world class centre of excellence. During their time at the Trust, Fellows are exposed to the nuances of MSK radiology, where they get hands-on experience with diagnosing sarcomas, support interventional cases, take part in multi-disciplinary teams, and learn about complex procedures such as cryotherapy. The consultant team supporting this learning include Dr Mark Davies, Dr Steve James, Dr Rajesh Botchu, Dr Anish Patel, Dr Christine Azzopardi & Dr Jennifer Murphy.

The team were also recognised for continuing to deliver services during COVID and their involvement in interventional MSK radiology research and innovation. The team were agile in response to the COVID pandemic and went from normal services to longer days overnight to keep pace. The whole Radiology team collaborated in this, including radiographers, imaging department assistants, the admin team, medical secretaries, Fellows, training registrars from the Birmingham rotation as well as consultant radiologists and housekeeping. This group approach enabled the team to avoid a large backlog and so were able to get up and running to support services as they came back.

The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital’s Radiology team is at the forefront of interventional musculoskeletal radiology, performing complex procedures including cryotherapy, vertebroplasty, sarcoplasty, cementoplasty and RFA, and published over 80 papers in the last year. These papers cover innovations in biopsy techniques such as the dual steristrip technique, SAHNA technique and BITT as well as new terminology for injuries as they appear on MRI scans: pelican sign, whorl sign, rising root sign and snake sign.