Government to open 160 community diagnostic centers by March 2024

The federal government will meet its goal to open 160 community diagnostic centres a yr early, the Health and Social Care Secretary will announce today [31 October 2023].

All 160 centres can be open by March 2024, a yr ahead of the unique March 2025 goal – speeding up access to potentially lifesaving tests and checks.

In a speech to the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, he’ll confirm the rollout of the one-stop shops following the exertions of NHS staff and the federal government’s efforts to maximise use of the independent sector – backed by the £2.3 billion in capital funding.

Based in quite a lot of settings including shopping centres, university campuses and football stadiums, 127 of the community healthcare hubs are already open – including 40 brought forward sooner than planned. They provide patients a big selection of diagnostic tests closer to home and greater selection on where and the way they’re treated, reducing the necessity for hospital visits and helping them to receive potentially life-saving care sooner.

The programme constitutes the biggest central money investment in MRI and CT scanning capability within the history of the NHS and has already delivered greater than five million additional tests, checks and scans across the country. The brand new centres will provide capability for nine million more by 2025 as a part of the NHS and government’s plan to get well services following the pandemic.

Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay said:

Patients deserve the best quality care, and community diagnostic centres have been instrumental in speeding up the diagnosis of illnesses like cancer and heart disease to make sure patients are treated more quickly.

I’m delighted we’ll open 160 CDCs a yr early, allowing greater access to high tech scans and diagnostics in communities across the England.

This has been made possible through the use of all capability available to us and drawing on the independent sector – helping us to chop waiting lists, considered one of the federal government’s top five priorities.”

The federal government has announced three of the ultimate locations which can serve tens of hundreds of patients, with all set to open in December 2023. They’re:

• Queen Mary’s Sidcup CDC – Based in South East London, the ability will offer CT, MRI and ultrasound checks, together with blood tests – providing at the very least 58,000 additional checks once fully operational.
• Halifax CDC – Based at Broad Street Plaza shopping centre within the Yorkshire town, this CDC will offer ultrasound checks, blood tests, and heart scans – delivering at the very least 90,000 tests once fully operational.
• Chichester University CDC, Bognor Regis – This facility will offer CT and MRI scans together with ultrasound checks and blood tests to patients, and deliver at the very least 18,000 additional tests once fully operational.

In total, 13 of the CDCs are led by the independent sector, with eight of those already operational. There are an additional 22 CDCs positioned 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 capability within the independent sector patients can access additional diagnostic capability free at the purpose of need.

Alongside this, because the Prime Minister originally announced in May, tons of of hundreds of NHS patients who’ve been waiting longer than 40 weeks for treatment will today be offered the chance to travel to a distinct hospital as a part of ambitious measures set out within the Elective Recovery Plan.

Any patient who has been waiting longer than 40 weeks and doesn’t have an appointment inside the subsequent eight weeks can be contacted by their hospital via letter, text, or email. The 400,000 eligible patients who will then have the ability to submit their details including how far they’re willing to travel.

Because of this and wider measures, the federal government successfully met the primary goal in its elective recovery plan to virtually eliminate waits of over 2 years and has cut 18 month waits by over 90% from the height in September 2021.

Earlier this yr, the federal government’s Elective Recovery Taskforce set out a plan to maximise independent sector capability to treat NHS patients more quickly. Chaired by Health Minister Will Quince and made up of academics and experts from the NHS and independent sector, the taskforce looked for tactics to go further to bust the COVID-19 backlogs and reduce waiting times for patients.

Its recommendations will ensure patients have the proper to receive care at a provider of their selection, encourage the system to work together to deliver a post-pandemic recovery, and monitor the contribution of the independent sector to delivering health services and developing the workforce.

Earlier this month, the federal government also invested £200 million to spice up resilience within the NHS and help patients get the care they need as quickly as possible this winter. The brand new funding got here after the Prime Minister and Health and Social Care Secretary met clinical leaders and NHS chiefs to drive forward planning to ease pressures in urgent and emergency care while protecting waiting list targets this winter. Alongside this, £40 million was invested to bolster social care capability and improve discharge from hospital.

More information:

• DHSC and NHSE count CDCs delivering tests and accessing national funding as open. This may occasionally include temporary sites while the complete CDC is accomplished.
• We at the moment are recruiting for an independent chair of the selection panel, who will help promote compliance with rules on patient selection.
• In September, NHS England confirmed that 4 other CDCs had been approved – two in Wiltshire, one in Thanet and one in Cheshire