PLANS to base a new generation of super-scanners at major NHS hospitals in the region have been delayed.

In April, regional health bosses told The Northern Echo that a £5m Pet (positron emission tomography) scanner would be available to NHS patients "within a few months".

Now officials from the North-East Strategic Health Authority have confirmed that plans to station mobile Pet scanners at the Freeman Hospital, in Newcastle, and The James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough, have been delayed after a review ordered by the Government.

The delay means that patients from north Durham, Tyneside, Wearside and Northumberland will have to travel to London for Pet scans.

However, patients in South Durham, Tees Valley and part of North Yorkshire can be scanned at the Woodlands Hospital, in Darlington, where a mobile Pet scanner operated by Lister InHealth has a contract with local primary care trusts.

NHS bosses say they now expect Pet scans to be available at the Tyneside and Teesside hospitals early next year.

Pet scans are particularly good at picking up the early stages of cancer and checking whether cancers are spreading.

The Department of Health asked strategic health authorities and primary care trusts across the country to reassess how many scans and tests they needed from the independent sector.

Apart from North-East patients, the Darlington Pet scanner also serves NHS patients from the south of Scotland. An NHS Pet scanner is based in Nottingham, but it is so heavily used that it does not have spare capacity.

Most other NHS Pet scanners are based at London hospitals.

A spokesman from the North-East Strategic Health Authority said yesterday: "Because the final contract with the independent sector provider has yet to be closed, there has been a delay in setting up the new Pet CT scanning service, which is now expected to start in January.

"When it opens, the scanner will provide services at both the Freeman Hospital, in Newcastle, and James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough.

"This will enable patients with cancer to have their scan done locally to determine if there has been further spread of their disease, saving them from having to travel long distances."