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New £11.7m community diagnostic test centre opens

Kris Holland
BBC News, Northamptonshire
NHS Exterior of the Community Diagnostics Centre in Corby. The structure appears to be covered in a timber-style cladding with glass-panelled front door. NHS
The centre is located at the Willowbrook Health Centre in Corby

A new £11.7m diagnostic centre that will deliver about 93,000 tests a year has opened in a town.

The Corby Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) at the Willowbrook Health Centre site will also see procedures such as MRIs and ultrasound scans carried out.

It will be open seven days a week between the hours of 08:00 and 20:00, with patients referred to it for tests by their GP or by hospital consultants.

Polly Grimmett, the director of strategy at University Hospitals of Northamptonshire NHS Group, said the building was "an important development for local people offering a variety of tests away from our busy main hospital site".

She added: "It will provide testing in the community, in as few visits as possible, enabling an accurate and fast diagnosis on a range of clinical pathways.

"It will support GPs and hospital staff in diagnosing many major health conditions such as cancer, respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases (CVD), stroke and diabetes, at an earlier point.

"In turn this will help us to treat and better manage these conditions and reduce the risk of emergency attendances in hospital."

NHS A testing room at the new centre. There is a bed under a plastic sheet covering in a room with one wall covered in green wallpaper with a leaf pattern. There are white cabinets to the right of the room. NHS
About 93,000 tests a year will be possible at the new centre

The Corby CDC plan was first announced in early 2023 with public engagement events held in October of that year, as the scheme went through council planning approvals.

Work started on the Corby site in June 2024 and was completed last month.

The centre saw its first echocardiography patients on 18 June and CT and MRI scans started from 23 June.

It will be run by the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire in partnership with Alliance Medical, an independent sector supplier, and has been funded centrally as part of national initiatives to deliver from CDCs across the country.

The CDC in Corby will also deliver a variety of other respiratory, heart and blood tests. These will include a dementia pathway designed to speed up diagnosis and awareness for patients with suspected dementia using MRI or CT diagnostic tests.

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