UK funds 36 CDCs

England is putting £237 million into 36 new and expanded Community Diagnostic Centres, with ministers saying patients will get scans and tests faster without going to a main hospital. (gov.uk) The Department of Health and Social Care announced the funding on April 13. Four centres will be newly opened, 17 will be expanded, and 15 will get upgrades such as new scanning equipment, extra clinic rooms and more testing space. (gov.uk) The four new sites are planned for Gorton, Luton, Boston and Bideford during 2026 and 2027. NHS England’s South West team said the Bideford centre is due to open in summer 2027 on the Bideford Community Hospital site. (gov.uk) (england.nhs.uk) Community Diagnostic Centres are walk-in style testing hubs for scans, blood tests and other checks that sit away from busy emergency and inpatient hospital wards. NHS England says the programme was designed to move planned diagnostics into community settings such as shopping centres, university campuses and football stadiums. (england.nhs.uk) The model grew out of the post-pandemic drive to cut diagnostic backlogs and separate scheduled testing from urgent hospital demand. A 2021 medical journal explainer said the centres were intended to speed diagnosis, reduce hospital visits and let general practitioners refer patients directly for tests. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) The government says the NHS in England carried out a record 29 million diagnostic tests in 2025. It also says testing activity was 3.5 million higher in the first 18 months of this government than in the 18 months before July 2024. (gov.uk) Community Diagnostic Centres were already a large national network before this week’s announcement. NHS England guidance updated in July 2025 said 170 sites had been approved across England and 165 were operational as of August 2024. (england.nhs.uk) The programme has also already handled a large volume of tests. A parliamentary answer published in December 2024 said the centres had delivered more than 10.4 million diagnostic tests since July 2021, while NHS England’s statistics page says updated activity data is due on April 16, 2026. (questions-statements.parliament.uk) (england.nhs.uk) Wes Streeting said a timely cancer diagnosis “shouldn’t be a question of luck” as he promoted the investment. The Society of Radiographers welcomed the extra capacity but said demand cannot rise safely without a workforce plan and enough additional staff. (lbc.co.uk) (sor.org) What changes next is practical rather than structural: more scanners, more rooms and more local sites. The test for this £237 million rollout will be whether those additions shorten waits in places that still send patients back to hospital for routine diagnostics. (gov.uk)