A new Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) in Oldham - one of the country’s largest out-of-hospital diagnostic centres - is now open.
The £10 million centre, located in Salmon Fields, Royton, is the first of six CDCs planned for the region. More than 30,000 patients a year across the local and wider Greater Manchester area will benefit from this facility.
The CDC is part of the Government’s £2.3 billion national investment to open up to 160 CDCs by 2025, closer to patients’ homes, helping to diagnose a range of conditions including cancer, heart and lung disease quicker and ensuring patients are treated faster. The new one-stop-shops for checks, scans and tests will provide up to nine million additional tests a year by 2025.
Oldham CDC will be open seven days a week, 8am to 8pm, and will provide the latest diagnostic imaging technology, heart and lung tests and blood tests. Patients are referred to the centre by their GP or healthcare professional. Next year will see the opening of a new unit at the Oldham CDC that will deliver endoscopy services.
Barney Schofield, Director of Planning and Delivery at the Northern Care Alliance said: “This new centre will be a tremendous asset for the people of Oldham and well beyond, helping us to achieve our ambitions of saving lives and improving lives. Too many people wait too long for tests and have to unnecessarily come to a hospital site for a test. The new centre will help us to make great improvements to our patient care.”
The centres will help achieve:
- earlier diagnoses for patients through quicker access to the full range of diagnostic tests needed to investigate patients’ symptoms;
- greater convenience for patients, providing multiple tests at one visit, away from busy hospital sites, with free car parking and access by public transport;
- a reduction in hospital visits which will help to reduce the risk of infection and provider greater resilience in any future pandemics; and
- a contribution to cutting carbon emissions and air pollution, by reducing the number of unnecessary patient journeys and traffic congestion in and around hospitals.
