MRI scans are used to detect a variety of conditions

The �750,000 MRI scanner was installed in September last year by the Department of Health, but there is not enough money to operate it.

Now private patients are being scanned to subsidise the cost.

NHS patients in Cornwall are waiting 11 months for MRI scans which can diagnose problems such as cancer.

NHS equipment should be used to treat NHS patients 100% of the time MP Julia Goldsworthy Tell BBC Cornwall what you think on the messageboard

Clinician Dr Simon Thorogood said: "The scanner did not come with the resources to keep it going, so it has sat to a fairly large extent idle since it was put in.

"However, we have decided that there is a potential here to use some of the spare capacity that we have got, when it is standing empty, to scan private patients.

"That brings in some revenue which will allow us to open up the scanner for even more time for more NHS patients."

He said the hospital was trying to find a solution in which the machine would be used all the time for NHS patients.

"It's not a situation we would have desired," he said.

"But this is a short-term solution which allows us to get some of our patients who have been waiting a considerable length of time to be scanned a little bit earlier than they would be otherwise."

'Extreme case'

MP Julia Goldsworthy has called on Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt to solve the problem. She said: "If the equipment can't be used what is the point in having it?

"NHS equipment should be used to treat NHS patients 100% of the time."

Dr Gill Markham, vice president of the Royal College of Radiologists, said she did not disapprove of what was a "common" situation for hospitals around the country.

She said: "There are MRI scanners, but the running costs are extremely high.

"Unfortunately many are standing idle or are not being used to the maximum.

"This is an extreme case, but the distinction between what are private and NHS patients is becoming increasingly blurred.

"Private patients have paid their NI and taken out additional insurance and the government is increasingly using private facililities for NHS patients so it is becoming increasingly irrelevant."