HOSPITAL bosses have reduced the waiting time for patients needing full body scans by five months.

The Royal Bolton Hospital was recently named as having the fifth longest waiting list in the country for MRI scans, which can be vital in the early diagnosis of life-threatening illnesses.

Patients were waiting up to a year to be seen.

Now, that wait has fallen to 30 weeks after health chiefs fast-tracked patients on to a mobile scanner at Salford's Hope Hospital.

A temporary mobile scanner is also due to arrive at the Royal Bolton Hospital in August for five weeks in a bid to cut waiting times even further.

This scanner will be shared with Wythenshawe Hospital in south Manchester.

In November, another mobile scanner should be delivered to the hospital. This was due to arrive at the beginning of the year, but was put back to next month, and then was delayed again because health chiefs could not complete "confidential commercial agreemments at a Greater Manchester level.

That scanner will be sited at the hospital for 12 months.

But Bolton South East Labour MP Brian Iddon says the plans are too little, too late and wants to see more action.

He said: "This just isn't good enough and the hospital really has to do something about it.

"Bolton's patients deserve better."

Deputy director of corporate services at the Royal Bolton Hospital said: "Both the Bolton Primary Care Trust and the Bolton Hospital NHS Trust recognised some time ago that MRI scan waits had become too long.

"That's why plans for tackling the problem are already being implemented. Hundreds of Bolton people have already benefitted from a fast-track pilot programme using a mobile scanner which is moving around Greater Manchester.

"We're confident that by the end of the year there will be further significant reductions."

Bolton already has its own MRI scanner, which was partly paid for by lottery cash, but does not have the money to run it full time. Nor does it have enough radiologists to read the scan results.

Hulton Tory councillor Andy Morgan, who sits on Bolton Council's health and scrutiny committee, said: "We have a serviceable MRI scanner sitting at the hospital, but this is a funding issue, and these waiting lists could be cut if we were using this scanner at its full capacity.

"If the hospital is serious about making the patient experience better and discharging clients quicker, then its fundamental to get this scanner working to its full capacity."