The initiative will aim to provide evidence-based guidance at the point of request for general practitioner-requesting systems and hospital systems when selecting diagnostic imaging tests.

In 2015-2016, 40 million imaging investigations were undertaken in England alone, and general practitioners requested 26% of all tests used to diagnose or discount cancer, according to the RCR. The most common test was a chest radiograph, accounting for 8.1 million tests requested in 2015-2016, but the range of imaging tests now available and how they can best be used grows more complex each year, it noted.