Health Secretary Therese Coffey has opened a new community diagnostics centre in a North London shopping mall as part of efforts to cut the NHS backlog.
The Wood Green Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC), on the ground floor of The Mall Shopping Centre, will offer blood tests, x-rays, ultrasound scans and eye tests as part of a “one-stop shop” for patients.
It follows Ms Coffey’s announcement that ten new diagnostic centres will open across the UK. Based in community settings such as shopping centres and football stadiums, the hubs are designed to reduce Covid backlogs by speeding up diagnoses.
Once referred by a GP, pharmacist or hospital, patients can access CDCs in their area and get symptoms checked out.
Whittington Health NHS Trust, who are operating the centre, say they hope that the centre will tackle health inequalities in the borough of Haringey.
It is hoped that the centre will help to reduce health inequalities in the borough, which currently has a 15-year gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and least well-off areas.
Speaking to the Standard at the centre on Tuesday, Ms Coffey said she hoped that it would make it easier for patients to have quicker access to the diagnosis they need.
“Sometimes it can take several hours for a patient to get to a hospital and go through the diagnostic process but here they are doing a ‘one-stop shop’,” she said. “Compared to a snail’s pace they are going at a Lewis Hamilton Formula 1 pace.
“I think it’s a modern approach prompted by the growth of Covid and aimed at getting this backlog down. But it’s also an opportunity to have a different way of doing diagnostics so that you’re not competing with emergency situations. Hopefully we’ll get lots of doctors referring their patients here.”
NHS medical director for transformation, Vin Diwakar, said: “We know that rapid diagnosis saves lives, and it is great news that more of these centres have been approved to provide checks, scans and tests in the heart of local communities, making services more accessible and convenient and also helping us to improve outcomes for patients with cancer and other serious conditions.”
The centre currently employs 25 staff and runs from Monday to Friday, but will open seven days a week in the near future.
It will also include services run by other NHS organisations, including Ophthalmology services which are provided by Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.
The CDCs, backed by £2.3 billion in government funding, have delivered more than two million tests, checks and scans since July 2021. Other centres will be opened in Warrington, Cheshire, Dudley in the West Midlands, Newmarket in Suffolk and Rotherham in South Yorkshire.
