MRI Quest - an Ealing Hospital adventure

Time to map our hospitals better

Picture:Getty Images

I arrived at my local hospital at 8.30 yesterday for a 9 am appointment and it turned into quite an adventure. My mission - to find Ealing Hospital’s MRI Unit, ideally within 15 minutes because there is a deal of admin to go through before you have a scan. (There is a long form to fill in where you have to remember whether there is any metal inside your body - a pacemaker, fragments of bullets, a teaspoon and so on).

First stop, main reception. “MRI unit? Straight on, turn left, past the pharmacy, down the stairs, and through the doors - it’s actually outside.” Off I trotted and within seconds was lost - as my wife will tell you, I am the world’s worst navigator.

I stopped a hospital worker, and got the same instructions about heading for the pharmacy. I trotted on down the endless blue corridors, got lost again, asked someone else - then, miracles of miracles, spotted an actual sign to the MRI Unit. Disappointingly, it turned out to be like those signs to "‘The North’ as you leave London, petering out after a while leaving you somewhere indeterminate.

But then suddenly I’d cracked it - I was standing at Ultrasound and MRI Reception. I gave my name, said I was here for an 0900 appointment, and the receptionist smiled and gave me a piece of paper. It seemed I had only completed Phase 1 of MRI Quest.

Rory Cellan-Jones @ruskin147

Love it that Ealing Hospital has turned finding the MRI unit into an escape room game

I had now been given the final instructions to reach my destination. It felt as though Ealing Hospital had been transformed into one of those escape rooms, once so popular with office parties. (As my friend Adrian put it, “one of the Pharmacy Assistants will only tell the truth, one will only lie.”)

Lacking confidence, I set off again, immediately stopping to ask someone where the pharmacy was. Ok, found that, but surely they can’t mean that little staircase to the side? Yes they did, and at the bottom was a door leading outside. I looked around bemused - where was the MRI unit? There was some kind of prefab building but no sign on it. I asked another passer-by who gestured at the prefab.

I walked through the doors and found that I had completed MRI Quest within the allotted 15 minutes. When I asked whether I got a prize, the receptionist was good enough to smile patiently as she handed me the form about my body’s metal content.

Now, an MRI scan is not the most pleasant procedure. You are loaded into a claustrophobic tube and for forty five minutes subjected to a series of loud noises as the machine does its job. But the staff could not have been kinder or more professional, giving me headphones and a choice of radio stations - I chose BBC Radio 5 Live getting the occasional snippet of Nicky Campbell’s phone-in between what sounded like blasts of pneumatic drilling - and kept me constantly informed about how much longer I would be in the tube.

But I lay there reflecting on how this was a standard NHS experience - you arrive at decaying, poorly signposted buildings, spend ages trying to navigate your way to your destination, where you eventually get world-class treatment.

On the left Westfield on Google Maps, on the right Ealing Hospital

Some of the problems with hospital buildings will cost billions to fix. But making them easier to find your way around should be simple. I had a look at what Google Maps showed me about the inside of Ealing Hospital and about the giant Westfield shopping centre at White City a few miles away. The contrast was stark - individual shops labelled in Westfield, a big empty space at the hospital.

So here’s an idea. Get Google and Apple to map the inside of every NHS hospital - for free. Or maybe get What3Words to pinpoint every hospital department. MRI Quest was fun - but getting thousands of patients to their appointments on time is a much better game for the NHS.