THOUSANDS of patients are set to benefit after a new piece of equipment costing £600,000 was bought by Fairfield Hospital, Bury.

The state-of-the-art CT scanner replaces a 10-year-old machine in the X-ray department.

More than 8,000 patients a year will gain from the £626,000 investment in radiology services, which will deliver high quality images with reduced radiation doses.

CT, or CAT scans, take pictures of the body and uses a computer to put them together. They use X-rays and are painless, producing cross section images to help with diagnosis.

Dr Judith Mather, site lead for radiology at Fairfield, said: “The new 160 slice scanner is faster then than the old four slice CT, and in some cases scan time is reduced to a matter of seconds.

“While this does not mean we can scan more patients, it allows us to collect a large amount of data very quickly, which makes the procedure much more comfortable for the patient and ensures a top quality examination.

“CT has long held a place in the diagnosis and management of cancer, but it is now becoming the investigation of choice for many illnesses.”