The plans for NHS testing village which takes ‘weeks off’ serious diagnosis wait times
Reporter: Charlotte Green, Local Democracy Reporter
Date published: 22 September 2023
The expanded diagnostic village in Royton. Image courtesy of Northern Care Alliance
A pop-up NHS testing ‘village’ which takes ‘weeks off’ the time taken to diagnose ‘serious’ illnesses for Oldham residents is to be made permanent and offer even more screening options.
Oldham council granted permission for a temporary community diagnostics centre to be set up on vacant land in Royton in December 2021 for a period of up to five years.
Now the planning committee has given the green light for the diagnostic ‘village’, which has already seen 25,000 patients, to be kept permanently on the Salmon Fields site.
And the centre, one of 40 being set up around the country, it is to be expanded with additional health facilities, including a modular CT scanner, and a PET CT scanner with a control room.
Director of planning and delivery at the Northern Care Alliance NHS Group, Barney Schofield told councillors they had already seen a ‘benefit’ from the first phase of development.
“Over 25,000 patients have now had diagnostic tests in the building that’s already there on the site. The patient feedback has been extraordinarily high,” he added.
“Patients find the site preferable to battling our hospital sites when they only need a simple test.
“And it’s allowed us to take weeks and weeks off the time it takes us to diagnose serious illnesses and in many fewer visits for patients because we can deliver more tests on the same day in this facility.
“This application seeks to add new diagnostic capabilities to this site, so we’ll see even more patients. We’re confident it’s much needed.”
A new endoscopy unit will be created in a single storey building with a waiting area for 20 people, four consultant rooms and three procedure rooms, as well as recovery units.
Additionally a urology unit will be installed in a new two storey building that will also include a waiting room with space for 30 people, four procedure rooms, one ‘enhanced’ procedure room, six consultant rooms and other specialist areas.
The centre provides a full range of diagnostic imaging technology and lung tests, open seven days a week.
Planning officer Graham Dickman said: “Quite clearly there is an established element of community benefit from these, it’s part of a wider NHS process to bring these various diagnostic processes together on a single site.
“The current building on the site has operated quite successfully so far. ”
Werneth ward Councillor Shoab Akhtar said: “It’s a much-needed service in the area, across Oldham and actually across the conurbation itself.”
The plans were approved unanimously by councillors.
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