New £9.6m Diagnostic Centre approved for Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup
Formal approval and £9.6m of funding has been given by NHSE for a new Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) on the Queen Mary’s Hospital Site in Sidcup.
Plans for the CDC were unveiled during a visit to the site by The Rt. Hon. Steve Barclay MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, last week. The centre will vastly enhance the diagnostic capability across south east London where patients currently experience some of the lowest imaging rates in the country.
Speaking during the visit, Mr Barclay said: “Patients deserve the highest quality care, and community diagnostic centres have been instrumental in speeding up the diagnosis of illnesses like cancer and heart disease to ensure patients are treated more quickly.”
The approval for the centre is a significant success for partnership working in the Integrated Care System (ICS). As owner and landlord of the site, we will be responsible for managing the construction of the centre which once completed, will be operated by Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust. It will provide more than 50,000 diagnostics tests (phlebotomy, CT, MRI and X-ray) annually.
Chief Executive of Oxleas NHS, Dr Ify Okocha, who welcomed Mr Barclay to Queen Mary’s Hospital for the visit, said: “We are delighted that the services offered at Queen Mary’s Hospital continue to grow and the CDC will make it quicker and easier for local people to have important tests. There is a strong commitment to Queen Mary’s being a vibrant hub of health services for the community and the new diagnostic centre will support this even further.”
The Rt.Hon Steve Barclay is pictured centre with Louie French, MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup (L) and Oxleas NHS Chief Executive Dr Ify Okocha (R).
