Medical physics and medical engineering in the UK

Changes in the way health care is delivered in the UK are having a direct impact on medical physics and medical engineering services. To help understand how these services are managed and how they might be affected by such changes, a questionnaire was circulated to 110 UK medical physics/medical engineering departments. It asked for information on departmental resources, management arrangements and organization of activities. The survey was returned by 45% of departments. Departments vary widely in their sizes, resources and pattern of services delivered. Several factors were identified which appear to influence departmental organization: size, pattern of services provided, type of associated hospital and links to external organizations. Competition is clearly developing and this is likely to reduce the viability of smaller departments. Various matters of concern are discussed and the need for good comparative data and further research is underlined.