Plans to invest £30 million developing Mile End Hospital and Barking Community Hospital into full community diagnostic centres have been agreed by the local NHS.
The plans, approved by NHS North East London Integrated Care Board (30 November), aim to reduce waiting times for tests, make tests easier to access, and reduce inequalities so that patients can get quicker treatment for a wide variety of conditions.
Building costs – and running costs for the first few years – will come from NHS England.
A public consultation on proposals to expand and develop community diagnostic centres in north east London ran from July to September this year. Almost 400 hundred people responded, with two out of three respondents agreeing with the proposal to develop Mile End Hospital and Barking Community Hospital.
The full report can be found on the North East London Health and Care Partnership website.
Dr Paul Gilluley, Chief Medical Officer, NHS North East London, said: “This is great news for residents in north east London. The faster we can find out the causes of sickness, the faster we can treat people – reducing long term sickness and saving lives.
“Mile End Hospital and Barking Community Hospitals are well developed centres, but this extra investment will really help the NHS speed up processes and make them simpler for patients – for example reducing the number of visits people have to make to diagnostic centres.” Community diagnostic centres act as one-stop-shops for checks, scans and tests for a range of conditions – enabling patients to access these closer to home, rather than travelling to hospital. From more information, visit the Health Education England website.
