RT-radiographers’ role in the healthcare sector

There is a lack of nurses in Denmark and in early 2020, the Danish government and the healthcare payers (the Danish Regions) announced a plan to alleviate the lack of nurses in Denmark. One element of the plan was to ensure that resources in the healthcare sector are put to their best use. 

In this analysis, we show that it is cheaper and faster to educate and employ RT-radiographers than radiation therapists. A RT-radiographer is a radiographer with a specialisation in radiation therapy, and a radiation therapist is most often a nurse with an additional year of training within radiation therapy. 

Employment of more RT-radiographers seems feasible, since we show that the specialised knowledge of RT-radiographers is not optimally utilised, and we estimate that more RT-radiographers will be active in the labour market towards 2025. We used a combination of publicly available data sources, interviews, and a large survey, which resulted in replies from 30% of the total population of authorised radiographers in Denmark. 

The main conclusions of our study are:

• It is cheaper to educate a RT-radiographer than a radiation therapist
• It is at least half a year faster to educate a RT-radiographer than a radiation therapist
• Today, 37% of RT-radiographer work outside their specialisation in radiation therapy
• Over the coming years, there will more RT-radiographers available on the labour market, and an increased demand for their specialised competences within radiation therapy is expected.

The study is commissioned by The Danish Radiographer Society (Radiograf Rådet).