Published on 29 November 2022
Runcorn will be the latest place in Cheshire and Merseyside to open a hub to fast-track patient diagnosis, including checks for cancer.
Halton Hospital in Runcorn has received funding for a Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC), as part of a national programme aimed at reducing waiting times.
CDCs are part of the Government’s plans to slash the COVID-19 backlog and several have opened across Cheshire and Merseyside in the past year, with more than 100,000 extra checks being carried out in them.
Halton Hospital's CDC will host a range of features including an upgraded MRI scanner, extra rooms for lung tests and sleep studies, extra capacity for ultrasound and blood tests, and a multi-storey car park to ‘future-proof’ the site.
The CDC will increase throughput and capacity for tests and checks, provide additional staff and enable the refurbishment and modernisation of currently unsuitable estate. Importantly, as well as meeting current and future demand for the Trust, it will also support the wider Cheshire and Merseyside footprint through a ‘mutual aid’ scheme – with the aim of achieving a maximum six-week diagnostic wait across the entire region.
This will be the sixth CDC to open in Cheshire and Merseyside, adding to hubs already open at Clatterbridge in Wirral, Liverpool Women’s Hospital, Ellesmere Port, St Helens and Victoria Infirmary in Northwich.
Lucy Gardner, Director of Strategy and Partnerships at Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Trust said: “Creating a CDC at Halton is major strategic investment which will not just benefit the patients of Halton and Warrington, but the wider Cheshire and Merseyside region as we work together to tackle extended waiting times and backlogs that accumulated because of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as addressing health inequalities and deprivation linked to this region.
“It also enables us to test the foundation for a potential larger-scale development of a new-build CDC at Halton which would see the Captain Sir Tom Moore building extended – a critical enabler of the Trust’s new hospitals programme.”
The CDC is set to open in Spring 2023 with completion of the multi-story car park in the summer of 2024.