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Radiology services are responsible for all kinds of imaging – from CT and MRI scans to ultrasound and x-rays. Our radiology workforces manage this process from start to finish – from taking scans through to interpreting (or “reporting”) their results.

Our radiology workforce is diverse with a range of sub-specialties focused on different kinds of scanning. It is made up of:

  • Radiologists – doctors who specialise in interpreting the results of scans. This also includes interventional radiologists, who use imaging technology to perform medical procedures. We have 554FTE radiologists in New Zealand, 322FTE employed by Health NZ and 232FTE employed in private practice; though these two groups often overlap. We also have a sizeable radiology workforce who are registered here but work from overseas (120FTE), offering telereporting, mainly in private practice.
  • Medical imaging technicians (MITs, also known as radiographers) are carry out scans. Some MITs specialise in CT, MRI, or PET-CT scanning, in mammography, or in nuclear medicine – you might see these workforces referred to as MRI technicians (MRITs) or as nuclear medicine technologists (NMTs). We have 1,635FTE MITs, 61FTE NMTs and 292FTE MRITs in New Zealand; 1,005 employed by Health NZ and 970FTE employed in the community.
  • Sonographers, who specialise in performing ultrasound scans. We have 579FTE sonographers in New Zealand, 238FTE employed by Health NZ and 341 employed in the community.

 

 

Today
Our estimates of current FTE shortages across the health sector, based on current ways of working, are around:

By 2033
Based on current trends, models of care and technology, if we do not change how we work, we estimate that by 2033 we would need additional FTE across the health sector of around:

Radiologists

 

+90

13.6% of our total need

+90

13.9% on top of current pipeline

MITs (incl. MRI and CT specialists)

 

+160

9.0% of our total need

+270

15.2% on top of current pipeline

NMTs

 

+20

22.0% of our total need

+10

11.1% on top of current pipeline

Sonographers

 

+70

11.1% of our total need

No additional shortage
based on current trends and models of care

Our radiology services have seen rising demand in recent years. Other services rely on timely radiology for diagnosis and treatment, so high-performing radiology services are needed to ensure a range of health services can operate well.

While we maintain a relatively well-staffed MIT workforce, we have seen growing demand for CT and MRI scanning; and for MITs specialising in these scanning modalities, we now have significant wage and workforce competition from private radiology. This has resulted in some centres not operating public MRI machines due to workforce shortages.

Over time, a growing proportion of all our major radiology workforces have moved into private practice. While a high-performing private health sector is an important part of our health system, we need to balance private capacity with a sustainable public radiology service. Workload and relative pay are both contributors to this trend.

The opportunity

Health NZ is working to shape our existing public radiology services into a new, national service – and in doing so working to tackle workload and relative inequities in remuneration and conditions across New Zealand. This represents a huge opportunity to support the sustainability of our radiology services, including:

  • Variable terms and conditions, and a range of different approaches to managing excess volumes of radiology reports and scans.
  • Adapting to the opportunities of new models of care, making better use of assistant workforces, and of technology (including AI).
  • Growing competition for workforce with the private sector.

Demand for radiology services is likely to continue increasing for the foreseeable future – both diagnostic and interventional – so we’ll need relative growth across all our radiology workforces for the future. At the same time, we have an opportunity to be more strategic in managing the flow of workforce between the public and private radiology sectors, to ensure we maintain a strong, public radiology service.

What will it take?

Strengthening our radiology workforce in the short- and long-term will require both that we reshape our services to make better use of our skilled people, and that we attract more people to work in radiology for the long haul. Over the next three years we will focus on:

  • Bolstering our radiologist workforce. By growing training pathways for radiology and through our changes to radiology services, we can use a blend of service model change, technology and increased training numbers to lift load on our radiologists, and improve the speed with which scans are reported.
  • Increasing training volumes for allied workforces. We will target continued, strong growth in our MIT, NMT, sonographer and specialist CT and MRI training capacity over coming years. Adding training capacity in private settings, too, is likely to help us add this capacity, without putting too much load on our public workforce.
  • Realising technological opportunities. Radiology is an area where investment in technology can alleviate workload, improve triage, and make better use of national capacity (for example, allowing for national telereporting to smooth demand between regions). We need to do so to make better use of our national capacity, and avoid some regions being put under unmanageable strain.

Long-term, we will need to consider more fundamentally how we want to spread demand for radiology across the public and private sectors, and make strategic choices about public investment in different kinds of scanning technology (such as PET-CT).

Opportunities such as growing international capacity for teleradiology, and the use of AI to support triage, will have more fundamental effects on how our radiology services are configured – so we’ll need to closely monitor these shifts in technology and models of care to map our future workforce needs.

Action What we'll do
1.1 Secure educational training capacity Secure 100 new training places for students in tertiary training programmes where we need growth – including for sonography, radiation therapy, oral health therapy and podiatry.
1.2 Boost Health NZ’s placement capacity Expand and improve Health NZ capacity for allied and specialist nursing placements, including for anaesthetic technicians, oral health therapists, medical imaging technologists, podiatrists, cardiac sonography and cancer nursing.
1.9 Plan medical training capacity nationally Develop a national map of medical training volumes, so we can align future increases in training numbers to specialties where need is greatest.
4.2 Expand medical training in vulnerable specialties Add 5 radiology training roles in Health NZ services.
4.5 Create private training capacity Reach agreement with our major private providers of public health services (e.g. private hospitals delivering public surgical lists) to allow training in private settings, with consistent terms.