X-ray reporting in accident and emergency departments???reducing errors

It is well recognized by accident and emergency clinicians and the defence societies that radiological abnormalities are frequently missed by the clinician who first looks at the X-rays. These errors may be compounded if the X-rays are not reported by a radiologist. The X-rays may be reported but the report is not seen by the clinician. The report may be seen by the clinician, but a system for recalling the patient is not put into operation. The purpose of this article is to make the important point that false positive and false negative misses on X-rays need to be communicated to the accident and emergency department promptly so that appropriate action can be taken. We describe an efficient method of communication.