COMMUNITY DIAGNOSTIC CENTRES WILL REDUCE PRESSURE ON A&E, SAYS MINISTER

Health minister Stephen Kinnock has said the expansion of community diagnostic centres will help to take the pressure off A&E.

Speaking on GB News Stephen Kinnock said:

“We’re really pleased that we’ve passed an important milestone today, that we’ve now got 100 community diagnostic centres across England that are open for 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

“These CDCs, as they’re called, play a vitally important role in terms of maximising access for people. So if it’s open 12 hours a day, seven days a week, even people with busy working lives can very rapidly get an appointment.

“They have the whole spectrum of diagnostics, from MRI scans to CAT scans to X rays, and it’s going to really help, because they’re embedded in communities. They’re in your local shopping centre, maybe in your local university, so easy to get to.

“That’s really having a good impact: if you look at cancer diagnostics, the 28 day target for either being diagnosed with cancer or having cancer, ruled out – 100,000 more people have been able to hit that 28 day target thanks in large part to what the CDCs are doing.

“The shift from analogue to digital is right at the heart of our 10-year plan. It’s crazy that in this day and age, some parts of the NHS are still sending faxes to each other. Sometimes people are getting letters to confirm appointments two or three days after the appointment was actually supposed to take place.

“We’re changing all of that with our NHS app, which is getting more and more take up, and where you can book and reschedule appointments, you can get important information about your diagnosis, your GP can easily refer you, for example, to one of the community diagnostic centres.

“We’ve got to get better at harnessing technology. Obviously, we know that there are people who are not that comfortable with technology, and we’ve got to also make sure that they are able to use the telephone if they want to, or even still communicate by letter.

“But slowly but surely, we are moving to a digital NHS, and that can only be a good thing.

“Tor the community diagnostic centres, you go into your GP and through the technology interface between GPS and community diagnostic centres, you then get an appointment into your CDC.

“The good thing is that through that referral system and because the CDCs are going to be open 12 hours a day, seven days a week, you can get that appointment very quickly, and it’s easy access.

“There’s about 170 community diagnostic centres around England today is important, because 100 of that 170 are now open 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

“I think it will take pressure off the outpatient appointments. Right now we’ve just got too much pressure on outpatient appointments in secondary and acute care, and also all the pressure we’re seeing on accidents and emergency.

“So by shifting that out of hospitals into the community, you’re getting that pressure being taken off. And of course, the good thing with the community diagnostic centre is it’s important that you get a diagnosis if you are not well, or if you get that X ray, which really shows how the progress you’re making on your hip operation, or whatever it might be.

“But it’s also important in terms of ruling things out, so it takes pressure off the NHS when people think there might be an issue where they send your GP, says ‘You better go in and have that looked at.’

“You get the MRI scan, you get the CAT scan. It says, ‘no, you’ve got a clean bill of health, nothing to see here’, and that helps take pressure off the system as well.”