The government will meet its target to open 160 community diagnostic centres a year early, the Health and Social Care Secretary has announced. All 160 centres will be open by March 2024, a year ahead of the original March 2025 target - speeding up access to potentially lifesaving tests and checks.
The Health and Social Care Secretary confirmed the rollout of the one-stop shops in a speech to the Independent Healthcare Providers Network. Based in a variety of settings including shopping centres, university campuses and football stadiums, 127 of the community healthcare hubs are already open, including 40 brought forward earlier than planned. They offer patients a wide range of diagnostic tests closer to home and greater choice on where and how they are treated, reducing the need for hospital visits and helping them to receive potentially life-saving care sooner. The new centres will provide capacity for 9 million more by 2025 as part of plans to recover services following the pandemic.
Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay said: "Patients deserve the highest quality care, and community diagnostic centres have been instrumental in speeding up the diagnosis of illnesses like cancer and heart disease to ensure patients are treated more quickly. I’m delighted we will open 160 CDCs a year early, allowing greater access to high tech scans and diagnostics in communities across England.
"This has been made possible by using all capacity available to us and drawing on the independent sector - helping us to cut waiting lists, one of the government’s top 5 priorities."
The government has announced 3 of the final locations which will serve tens of thousands of patients, with all set to open in December 2023. They are:
- Queen Mary’s Sidcup CDC - based in south-east London, the facility will offer CT, MRI and ultrasound checks, along with blood tests - providing at least 58,000 additional checks once fully operational
- Halifax CDC - based at Broad Street Plaza shopping centre in the Yorkshire town, this CDC will offer ultrasound checks, blood tests and heart scans - delivering at least 90,000 tests once fully operational
- Chichester University CDC, Bognor Regis - this facility will offer CT and MRI scans along with ultrasound checks and blood tests to patients, and deliver at least 18,000 additional tests once fully operational
In total, 13 of the CDCs are led by the independent sector, with 8 of these already operational. There are a further 22 CDCs located on the NHS estate where the independent sector is providing diagnostic services. They function like NHS-run CDCs but by making use of the available capacity in the independent sector patients can access additional diagnostic capacity free at the point of need.
Alongside this, as the Prime Minister originally announced in May, hundreds of thousands of NHS patients who have been waiting longer than 40 weeks for treatment will be offered the opportunity to travel to a different hospital as part of ambitious measures set out in the elective recovery plan.
Any patient who has been waiting longer than 40 weeks and does not have an appointment within the next 8 weeks will be contacted by their hospital via letter, text or email. The 400,000 eligible patients will then be able to submit their details, including how far they are willing to travel.
David Hare, chief executive of IHPN, said: “We welcome the announcement, which highlights the huge role independent providers are playing in delivering the Community Diagnostic Programme, something that is already making a big difference to patients, including through the early diagnosis of cancer.
“This is just part of the independent sector’s support for the NHS, and the sector remains committed to continuing to work closely with the NHS, delivering timely, high quality care, free at the point of use.”
On the announcement that some patients waiting more than 40 weeks will now be contacted and offered the opportunity to travel to a different hospital, Hare added:
“This is good news for patients. The fact that patients waiting a long time for treatment will be offered additional choices of providers that may be able to treat them more quickly is really welcome and a big step forward in delivering the commitments of the Prime Minister’s Elective Recovery Taskforce.
“We know from our research that some patients are willing to travel out of their local areas if it means quicker treatment. While this won’t suit every patient, for many it could make a huge difference, and we need to be pulling on every lever at our disposal to bring the waiting lists down.”
