Health authorities have been told poor reporting of radiology scans throughout the lower half of the North Island is endangering people's lives.
A new internal report to Health NZ lists four frequent failures it says could lead to 'patient death or a life-changing delay to treatment'.
In it, radiologists describe how they are often not seeing all the body parts that have been scanned - so could miss a patient's cancer.
They say the missing information, delays and other failings have persisted for years in the central region of Wellington, Hawke's Bay and Manawatu.
They say these appear not have caused a serious incident yet, but Te Whatu Ora must address them.
Phil Pennington has the secret report and spoke to Corin Dann.
