40tude is delighted to have been the primary funder of the PERFECTS programme, a pilot programme designed to develop the quality and availability of CT Colonography screening throughout the NHS.

During their study, the team at St. Mark's looked at the quality of interpretation of CT Colonography (CTC).  CT Colonography is a highly effective screening tool to identify early stage colon cancer.  This CT scanner-based test is non-invasive and is therefore more comfortable for patients than some other screening options. It also provides the ability to look at the other organs in the abdomen and pelvis outside the colon, including the appendix.

The data collated by the research team clearly showed that just one day of high-quality training for radiologists could improve the quality of their interpretations by as much as 20%. The PERFECTS team successfully developed a new Training and Quality Assurance tool for CT Colonography that now has enabled this method of screening to become a part of the NHS's national Bowel Cancer Screening Programme.

40tude's seed funding for the initial three years of this programme enabled the PERFECTS team to successfully provide high-quality training for more than 70 radiologists, with others now able to access the PERFECTS method of training in this 'gold standard' method of cancer screening. 

Based on this success, 40tude is now helping to fund the rollout of a wider programme: the National CTC Training and Accreditation Programme (NCTCTAP), designed to significantly increase the availability, and improved standards of quality, of training in CTC across the NHS.  In the immediate term, 40tude's funding will enable seven regional centres of excellence to be established, enabling more high-quality training to be provided to radiologists and radiographers throughout the UK.