Community diagnostic centres launching across England

Forty community diagnostic centres will open across England.

The new one-stop-shops for checks, scans and tests will be backed by a £350m investment from the government to provide around 2.8m scans in the first full year of operation.

The centres will help to achieve:

• earlier diagnoses for patients through easier, faster, and more direct access to the full range of diagnostic tests needed to understand patients’ symptoms including breathlessness, cancer, ophthalmology
• a reduction in hospital visits which will help to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission
• a reduction in waits by diverting patients away from hospitals, allowing them to treat urgent patients, while the community diagnostic centres focus on tackling the backlog
• a contribution to the NHS’s net-zero ambitions by providing multiple tests at one visit, reducing the number of patient journeys and helping to cut carbon emissions and air pollution

GPs will be able to refer patients to a centre so they can access life-saving checks closer to home and be diagnosed for a range of conditions, rather than travelling to hospital.

This will be more convenient for patients, more efficient and more resilient to the risk of cancelled tests in hospitals due to Covid-19. The centres will be staffed by a multi-disciplinary team of staff including nurses and radiographers and are open seven days a week.

Health bosses said all cancer services are back to or above pre-pandemic levels with almost half a million people checked for cancer in June and July, among the highest numbers on record, while more than 50,000 people started treatment for cancer in the same period, a 32% increase on the same period last year.

The centres will continue to further level up access to vital cancer tests and other tests to tackle the backlogs that have built up during the pandemic.

The new centres are being rolled out in a host of accessible settings, including:

• the Glass Works in Barnsley – the new centre will be part of the town centre redevelopment with access to 670 parking spaces and will deliver ultrasound, X-ray, breast screening, phlebotomy and bone density scans
• Falmer Community Stadium, home of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club – this will be one of 4 centres across the region serving a population of 1.7 million. The centres will provide additional MRI, CT, ultrasound and X-ray services
• a Community Diagnostic Village in a repurposed retail outlet in Poole – it will bring together primary, community and secondary care as well as local health support teams to serve the population of Dorset, particularly those in areas of known deprivation

Secretary of state for health and social care, Sajid Javid, said: ‘Tackling waiting lists will require new and more innovative ways of delivering the services people need. That is why we’re making it easier and more convenient to get checked.

‘Our new community diagnostic centres will bring those crucial tests closer to home including in the communities that need them most. They will help enable earlier diagnosis, allowing us to catch cancer and other issues as quickly as possible, and save more lives.’

Amanda Pritchard, NHS chief executive, said: ‘Rapid diagnosis will save lives and these one-stop shops for checks, scans and tests in the heart of local communities will not only make services more accessible and convenient for patients but they will also help us to improve outcomes for patients with cancer and other serious conditions, ultimately sparing more patients and families the pain and trauma of disease.

‘NHS staff have continued to provide routine care, throughout the pandemic, alongside treating around 450,000 seriously ill Covid patients in hospital, and the roll-out of these community diagnostic centres will help us to spot problems sooner, when they are easier to treat.’