Almost 6,500 people have benefited from diagnostic tests, scans and procedures at the North Bristol Community Diagnostic Centre since it opened in April.
The facility at Cribbs Causeway is run as a partnership between North Bristol NHS Trust and independent healthcare provider InHealth, to help more people access diagnostic services quickly and outside of a hospital setting.
When the permanent facility opens in late Summer, even more people will be able to benefit from tests on site, with diagnostic services having initially been delivered from mobile facilities, based adjacent to the main building.
The new Community Diagnostic Centre will be one of the largest of its kind in the UK and the biggest ever built by InHealth. You can take a look inside the centre with this virtual view of what the building will look like when complete.
The centre will provide services including: Endoscopy, CT, MRI, plain film X-ray, ultrasound imaging, Echocardiograms and respiratory tests. The mobile village has already seen almost 6,500 diagnostic procedures carried out in the three months since 1 April.
Community Diagnostic Centres are part of a national initiative to increase access to diagnostic tests and procedures, and the investment by the Government of £2.3 billion in opening 160 CDCs across the country by 2025.
The Community Diagnostic Capacity is one of five procured by the NHS in the South West under a partnership deal with InHealth, which will deliver 200,000-plus scans a year at an annual cost of around £30m. Alongside Cribbs Causeway, a second centre is based at Weston-super-Mare, with others to follow at Torbay, Yeovil and Redruth. Mobile units have been used to provide scans during construction of the permanent buildings.
Tim Whittlestone, North Bristol NHS Trust Chief Medical Officer, said: “We have already seen tremendous benefits for our patients since the Community Diagnostic Centre opened in April. Moving into the permanent building will increase the number of scans and procedures we can offer to people so that they can have easy access to tests and know what treatment options might be available to them.”
Dr Joanne Medhurst, Chief Medical Officer at NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICB, said: “The development of community diagnostic centres in the area is a significant step forward in enhancing healthcare accessibility and efficiency for our local people and reflects our commitment to providing high-quality, timely diagnostic services.
“We’ve already seen great benefits from the current facility and are excited to see further benefits, including greater capacity, come from the permanent facility.”
Geoff Searle, InHealth Chief Executive Officer, said: “We have been eagerly awaiting the opening of the permanent CDC at North Bristol and to see it now in its final stages is a real milestone. North Bristol will be the largest InHealth CDC in the country, located in an accessible community setting that illustrates perfectly how high quality healthcare services and facilities can be delivered with the greatest convenience for patients. Having worked very closely with North Bristol NHS Trust on this complex project for many months, we are all excited to celebrate the official opening later this summer”.