40 community diagnostic centres launching across England

Millions of patients will benefit from earlier diagnostic tests thanks to 40 new community diagnostic centres set to open across England.

Millions of patients will benefit from earlier diagnostic tests closer to home thanks to 40 new community diagnostic centres set to open across England in a range of settings from local shopping centres to football stadiums.

The new one-stop-shops for checks, scans and tests will be backed by a £350 million investment from government to provide around 2.8 million 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 7 days a week.

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.

Professor Sir Mike Richards, the first NHS national cancer director who recommended the changes, said:

The pandemic brought into sharper focus the need to overhaul the way we deliver diagnostic services and so I am absolutely delighted to see one of the key recommendations of my report becoming a reality for patients so quickly. I have no doubt that many people will benefit from these new NHS community diagnostic centres, bringing together many tests in one convenient place.

The centres will begin providing services over the next 6 months, with some already up and running, and will be fully operational by March 2022.

The centres are one of the recommendations from Professor Sir Mike Richards, the first NHS national cancer director, who conducted a review of diagnostic services as part of the NHS Long Term Plan, published last year.

The government recently announced an extra £5.4 billion to the NHS to respond to COVID-19 over the next 6 months, taking total extra COVID-19 funding to health and care services to over £34 billion this year alone. It builds on the new Health and Social Care Levy, which will see funding rise by a record £36 billion over the next 3 years.

This is on top of a further £36 billion for health and social care across the UK thanks to the Health and Care Levy, which will include £8 billion ring-fenced to tackle backlogs and help the NHS deliver an extra 9 million checks, scans and operations for patients across the country from 2022 onwards.

Table: 40 community diagnostic centres launching across England

Location Community diagnostic centre Region
Clacton Clacton and District Hospital East of England
New QEII Hospital (Hertfordshire and West Essex) New QEII Hospital Welwyn Garden City East of England
Leicester Leicester General Hospital East Midlands
Joined Up Derbyshire Florence Nightingale Community Hospital
Ilkeston Community Hospital
Whitworth Hospital
East Midlands
Finchley Memorial Hospital Finchley Memorial Hospital London
Queen Mary’s Hospital (South West London) Queen Mary’s Hospital London
Mile End Hospital Mile End Hospital London
Barking Community Hospital Barking Community Hospital London
Tees Valley Lawson Street Health Centre North East
Blaydon Blaydon Urgent Treatment Centre, Gateshead North East
Central ICP (Cumbria and North East) South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS FT North East
North Tyneside North Tyneside General Hospital North East
Penrith Penrith Hospital North West
Cheshire and Merseyside and Lancashire South Cumbria (CD&M and LSC) Lancashire Teaching Hospital Countess of Chester Hospital Liverpool Women’s Hospital North West
Manchester and Trafford Withington Hospital North West
Northern Care Alliance – Oldham Royal Oldham Hospital North West
Bolton Bolton NHS FT North West
Buckinghamshire Oxford and Berkshire West (BOB) West Berkshire Community Hospital Amersham Hospital Oxford Business Park Gemini One. South East
Frimley Frimley Park Hospital South East
St Mary’s Community Hospital (Portsmouth) St Mary’s Portsmouth South East
HIOW Southampton and SW Hampshire Royal South Hants Hospital
Lymington New Forest Hospital
South East
Surrey Heartlands Milford Community Hospital
Woking Community Hospital
East Surrey
South East
CDH Poole Dorset Health Village Beales Poole South West
Buckland Community Hospital Buckland Hospital South East
Sussex Health Falmer Community Stadium
Shorelands Hospital
Bexhill Hospital
South East
CIOS Bodmin (Cornwall/Isles of Scilly) Bodmin South West
Devon Exeter Nightingale NHS Nightingale Exeter South West
BSW BaNES Locality (Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire) Sulis Hospital South West
Gloucestershire Quayside Commercial Offices South West
Somerset Rutherford’s Diagnostics
Somerset Community
Somerset West
Somerset Ophthalmology
South West
Kidderminster Treatment Centre (Herefordshire/Worcestershire) Kidderminster Hospital and Treatment Centre West Midlands
Coventry and Warwickshire Warwickshire North
Coventry City
South Warwickshire
West Midlands
Washwood Heath (Birmingham and Solihull) Washwood Heath Urgent Care Centre West Midlands
Telford Princess Royal Hospital Telford West Midlands
Corbett Corbett Hospital West Midlands
Kings Mill King’s Mill Hospital, Mansfield East Midlands
Montagu Hospital (South Yorkshire) Montagu Hospital, Mexborough Yorkshire and Humber
Barnsley Glassworks Barnsley Glassworks Shopping Centre Yorkshire and Humber
Grantham Grantham and District Hospital East Midlands
Humber Coast and Vale Hull University Hospital Yorkshire and Humber