- New community diagnostic centres (CDCs) will be based near Scarborough train station and at Ripon Community Hospital and will deliver over 118,000 tests, checks and scans a year
- 108 CDCs are already open across England, with over 4 million checks delivered nationally – helping to cut waiting lists
- The one-stop shops support quicker access to care and offer patients a wide range of tests closer to home
Patients in North Yorkshire are set to benefit from two new community diagnostic centres (CDCs) which will deliver over 118,000 additional tests, checks and scans a year – bringing down waiting lists and offering people quicker access to care.
More than 375,000 tests, checks and scans have already been carried out in the North East and Yorkshire, benefitting tens of thousands of patients, and the new CDCs in the region will bolster this. CDCs across the country have already delivered over 4 million checks since July 2021.
The government is showing progress on its promise to open 160 of the facilities by March 2025, with 108 already up and running and a further 41 due to open. It has invested £2.3 billion to transform diagnostic services, and the CDCs have opened in a range of settings since the programme started in July 2021, including shopping centres and university campuses.
In addition to these two facilities, another six locations across the country have also been approved. Together, these eight new centres will provide capacity for more than 742,000 extra tests a year once fully operational, bolstering access to care.
Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay said:
These new centres will benefit tens of thousands of patients, cutting out unnecessary hospital visits and delivering closer, more convenient care.
Patients will be able to access a range of life-saving tests, including MRI scans, X-rays, and respiratory checks – speeding up the diagnosis of illnesses like cancer and heart disease.
We have already made significant progress in bringing down waiting lists – one of the government’s top five priorities – and community diagnostic centres are a key part of this, with over four million vital checks delivered so far.
Matt Graham, Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust’s Director of Strategy said:
The creation of a new community diagnostic centre at Ripon Community Hospital is fantastic news for the people of Ripon.
Over the last year, we have been working together with primary care services in Ripon on a request for funding and we are thrilled to have received approval for £1 million of investment in the buildings and equipment, plus further funding for additional staff.
The investment will allow us to transform diagnostic services in Ripon. It will enable us to refurbish and update the X-Ray room and expand the service to six days per week, with the potential for seven days when there is demand. We will create a larger ultrasound room, suitable for a wider range of patients and a second audiology room allowing us to offer more hearing tests in Ripon. We will also create two clinic rooms so that we can offer more frequent blood tests in Ripon and access to a wider range of tests including spirometry – to help diagnose and monitor certain lung conditions, ambulatory ECG – which records the electrical activity of the heart, and ambulatory blood pressure.
The centre will help reduce waiting times and speed up diagnosis so that patients can receive appropriate treatment sooner. We are aiming to have completed the building work so the services can start by the end of 2023.
HDFT is committed to providing the best possible healthcare for our community and the creation of a new diagnostic centre will allow us to further improve on the service we provide.
- Scarborough Gateway CDC: this will open in the town centre near Scarborough train station in December 2023 and offer 91,000 additional checks a year once fully operational.
- Scarborough CDC (Ripon) will open at Ripon Community Hospital in the same month, and will have capacity for 27,000 checks a year once up and running.
- Oldham CDC (South East Manchester) will open at the Crown Point Retail Park in Denton, Greater Manchester in December 2023, and offer 129,000 extra tests a year when all services are live.
- Manchester and Trafford CDC (North Manchester) – this will open in Harpurhey in December 2023 and offer 41,000 tests when fully operational.
- Clacton CDC (Bluebird Lodge) – this will open at the Bluebird Lodge community hospital in Ipswich in December 2023 and carry out 24,000 extra tests once up and running.
- Plymouth CDC – this will open in the town in September 2023 and offer the capacity for 89,000 tests when services are live.
- North Lincolnshire CDC (Grimsby) – this facility will open in Grimsby in December 2023 and have the capacity to deliver 142,355 tests.
- Hull and East Riding CDC – this will open in the city in December 2023 and have the capacity to deliver 198,856 tests.
GPs can 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. The centres are not only more convenient for patients but are also more efficient for staff and free up clinicians’ time to help further cut the waiting lists.
Other steps are being taken to bust the backlogs and boost patient choice. Last month, the government announced that patients will be empowered to choose where they receive hospital care. Currently just 1 in 10 patients exercise their right to choose but research shows that giving patients choice can cut up to 3 months off their waiting time by selecting a different hospital in the same region.
The government successfully met the first target in its Elective Recovery Plan to virtually eliminate waits of over two years and has cut 18 month waits by over 91% from the peak in September 2021.
Full list of CDCs open in North East and Yorkshire (as of 21 May 2023 – 375,000 checks, tests and scans since July 2021)
1. Barnsley Glassworks CDC
2. Bishop Auckland CDC
3. Blaydon CDC *closes when ICP North – Metrocentre opens
4. Leeds CDC
5. Leeds CDC (Armley Moor Health Centre)
6. Montagu Hospital CDC
7. Montagu Hospital CDC (Rotherham Diagnostics)
8. North Lincolnshire CDC (Askham Bar Community Care Centre)
9. North Lincolnshire CDC (East Riding Community Hospital)
10. North Lincolnshire CDC (Selby War Memorial)
11. North Lincolnshire CDC (Withernsea Community Hospital)
12. Penrith CDC *closes when North Cumbria opens
13. Tees Valley CDC (Friarage)
14. Tees Valley CDC (Hartlepool)
15. Tees Valley CDC – (Lawson Street)*closes when new Tees Valley Hub opens
Tees Valley CDC (Redcar)
