Radiography
Non-urgent advice: Important information
The Radiography Department sees almost all of NHS Orkney’s patients who come to The Balfour as outpatients, inpatients and through the Emergency Department (ED), and many of those who visit the GP as well. Our team deliver the general imaging and CT service 24 hours a day, seven days a week as an on-call service, ensuring we are available when there is an emergency, and we are needed. We see over 12,000 patients for one of the types of imaging we undertake every year.
We cover a wide range of types of imaging, not just x-rays. We have CT, Ultrasound, we use fluoroscopy for our orthopaedic patients and we will soon be delivering MRI in Orkney. For a small team we see a lot of patients! We do still need some of our patients to travel to Aberdeen for imaging as whilst we can do a lot, we can’t deliver all imaging.
We endeavour to get appointments out as soon as we can so you may receive a letter within a few days of seeing your doctor. We realise receiving an appointment within a few days of being referred can be quite quick and may be a bit daunting, but we want to make sure these tests are done as soon as we can and we currently see over 95% of our patients within 6 weeks of receiving a referral.
To rearrange your appointment, you should call the number on your letter. Please change it with us as soon as you can so that we can offer it to another patient.
If you have an appointment for the Radiology Department, please make sure you check in at the Central Reception desk on arrival at The Balfour and then take a seat in Radiology. Please do not go straight through to the Radiology department or you may not be seen in a timely manner.
Students
The department has students from Robert Gordon’s University. The placements usually last five weeks and we have two students from the end of April until the end of June. We also accommodate students from other universities who choose Orkney for their elective placement in order to experience radiography in a remote and rural hospital.
Contact Details
The Radiology Department
The Balfour
Foreland Road
Kirkwall KW15 1NZ
Tel: 01856 888232