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  "path": "/health/nhs-scan-echocardiogram-fail-patients",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-23T23:01:01.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.gbnews.com",
  "tags": [
    "Pregnant women to receive new checks as UK maternal deaths rise to highest level in two decades",
    "Cancer diagnosis rates soar as NHS faces worst waiting times on record",
    "Warning over mouth cancer symptom as doctor says 'changes can be visible early'",
    "The GB News Editorial Charter"
  ],
  "textContent": "\n\n\nAs many as one in three echocardiograms carried out by the NHS fail to deliver usable results, a newly published study has revealed.\n\nResearch appearing in JRSM Cardiovascular Disease found 34 per cent of these heart ultrasound scans were of insufficient quality to provide diagnostic clarity.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nThe findings, based on analysis of over 70,000 adult scans conducted across a decade at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, suggest thousands of patients are departing their appointments without definitive answers.\n\nAcademics from the University of East Anglia led the investigation, which examined why the NHS's primary cardiac imaging test so frequently falls short of expectations.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nTRENDING\n\nStories\n\nVideos\n\nYour Say\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nPatients suffering from lung conditions face the greatest risk of unclear results, with the study showing they are twice as likely to receive poor quality scans compared to other groups.\n\nThose with heart failure also experience significantly higher rates of unsuccessful imaging, as do individuals with irregular heart rhythms.\n\nHospital inpatients proved more likely to have problematic scans than outpatients attending scheduled appointments.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nThe research additionally identified patients who had previously undergone cardiac surgery as a high-risk group for inadequate image quality.\n\nThose fitted with pacemakers similarly showed elevated rates of non-diagnostic results from standard echocardiogram procedures.\n\nDr Pankaj Garg, the lead researcher from UEA's Norwich Medical School and a consultant cardiologist at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, said: \"Heart ultrasound scans known as echocardiograms are one of the most common tests used in the NHS.\n\n### LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:\n\n\n\n\n  * Pregnant women to receive new checks as UK maternal deaths rise to highest level in two decades\n  * Cancer diagnosis rates soar as NHS faces worst waiting times on record\n  * Warning over mouth cancer symptom as doctor says 'changes can be visible early'\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n\"They are usually the first test doctors order when someone has breathlessness, suspected heart failure or valve disease.\n\n\"But in everyday clinical practice, many of these scans fail because they don't produce clear images.\n\n\"Doctors are then forced to repeat the test or order more expensive scans, delaying diagnosis and increasing costs.\"\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nDr Garg added: \"This means that thousands of patients leave appointments without clear answers despite having undergone what is supposed to be the NHS's frontline heart test.\n\n\"Our research shows that in the NHS it may be possible to predict, before a patient even enters the heart-scanning room, whether a routine heart ultrasound is likely to produce clear or difficult-to-read images.\"\n\nThe research team, which included experts from the University of Sheffield and University of Leeds, calculated that directing certain patients towards contrast ultrasound or alternative imaging from the outset could have saved more than £300,000 among those examined during the study period.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n**Our Standards: The GB News Editorial Charter**",
  "title": "Up to a third of NHS scans 'fail' as thousands of patients left 'without answers'"
}