New £25m city centre health hub opens

A £25m city centre health hub to improve patient outcomes is opening for the first time.

The Community Diagnostics Centre (CDC) on Colin Campbell Court in Plymouth will have capacity for up to 340 daily appointments and will open between 08:00 and 20:00 BST. It plans to provide 135,000 tests each year.

It will offer CT, MRI, X-ray and ultrasound scans as well as cardiology, lung function, vascular and neurophysiology appointments, booked appointments for blood tests and adult audiology services.

The city council's cabinet member for health and adult social care, Maria Lawson, said she saw it as "the start" of a wider plan of health facilities and key to plans for 10,000 new homes.

The city council sold the land, valued at £270,000, to the University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust for £1. The site was chosen deliberately to help regenerate the West End and increase footfall to businesses, the trust said.

Imaging directorate manager at the CDC, Joan Audas, said 90 extra staff had been recruited in the imaging team, meaning people would get tests quicker.

A second CDC is planned for the area, along with a dental hub, as reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Health officials described the campaign for the diagnostics centre a "crusade".

It started in 2019 but hit problems in 2023 when an offer by the city council, to lend the NHS £45m to build a health facility, was turned down, as health chiefs said they could not afford the £2.6m annual repayments.

MP Luke Pollard, who unveiled a plaque to mark the facility open, said the project had involved "so much effort, time and thought".

"I have been arguing for health on the high street for some time but this is not just a building," Pollard said.

He said the city's "poorest communities" lived 50m from the new centre.

"Derriford is quite a trek from here and for many people it is too much money to get there," he said. "That means they are not accessing the healthcare they need."

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