Government to open 160 diagnostic centers by March 2024

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will announce today that the Government will achieve its target of opening 160 community diagnostic centers a year early.

All 160 centers will open by March 2024, a year ahead of the original target of March 2025, to speed up access to potentially life-saving tests and screenings.

In his speech to the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, he will confirm the launch of the One Stop Shop following the hard work of NHS staff and the Government’s efforts to maximize the use of the independent sector – supported by £2.3bn of funding .

Located in a variety of locations, including shopping malls, college campuses and football stadiums, 127 community health centers have opened, including 40 ahead of schedule. . They offer patients a range of diagnostic tests closer to home and more choice in where and how they are treated, reducing the need to go to hospital and helping them get treatment sooner. The program is the largest central cash investment in CT and MRI capacity in the history of the NHS and has delivered more than 5 million additional tests, examinations and scans across the country. The new centers will provide capacity for an additional nine million people by 2025 as part of the NHS and Government’s post-pandemic service recovery plan.

In total, 13 of CDCs were led by the independent sector, of which eight were operational. There are 22 other CDCs located on NHS estate where the independent sector provides diagnostic services. They operate in the same way as NHS-run CDCs, but by using capacity available in the independent sector, patients can access additional diagnostic capacity free of charge at the time they need it.

Meanwhile, as the Prime Minister initially announced in May, hundreds of thousands of NHS patients who have been waiting for treatment for more than 40 weeks will today have the opportunity to move to another hospital under ambitious measures set out in the election plan. Recovery plan.

Any patients who have been waiting more than 40 weeks and do not have an appointment within the next eight weeks will be contacted by the hospital by letter, text or email. The 400,000 eligible patients will then be able to submit their contact details, including the distance they want to travel.

Thanks to this and wider measures, the government has achieved the first target of the elective recovery plan, which was to virtually eliminate waiting times of more than two years and reduce waiting times by 18 months to more than 90% above the September 2021 peak.

Earlier this year, the Government’s Elective Recovery Taskforce set out plans to maximize the independent sector’s ability to treat NHS patients more quickly. Chaired by Health Secretary Will Quince and including academics and experts from across the NHS and independent sector, the taskforce has been looking at ways to go further to minimize COVID delays -19 and reduce waiting times for patients.

Its recommendations will guarantee patients the right to care from the provider of their choice, encourage a collaborative system to ensure recovery from the pandemic, and monitor the independent sector’s contribution in health service provision and health development. workforce. Earlier this month, the Government also invested £200 million to build the resilience of the NHS and help patients get the care they need as quickly as possible this winter. The new funding comes after the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care met with clinical leaders and NHS chiefs to promote plans to ease pressure on urgent care while protecting waiting list targets this winter. Meanwhile, £40m has been invested to strengthen social services capacity and improve hospital discharge.