World News | UK to Open 40 New Diagnostic Centres at Places Like Shopping Centres, Football Stadiums to Clear COVID-19 Backlog

London, Oct 1 (PTI) The UK's health service said on Friday that 40 new Community Diagnostic Centres are set to open across England in a range of settings, from local shopping centres to football stadiums, to help address the backlog created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new one-stop-shops for checks, scans and tests will be backed by a 350 million pounds (USD 473 million) investment from the government to provide around 2.8 million scans in the first full year of operation.

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The aim is to achieve earlier diagnosis for patients, a reduction of hospital visits and reduction of wait times for emergencies.

“Tackling waiting lists will require new and more innovative ways of delivering the services people need. That is why we're making it easier and more convenient to get checked,” said UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid.

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“Our new Community Diagnostic Centres will bring those crucial tests closer to home including in the communities that need them most. They will help enable earlier diagnosis, allowing us to catch cancer and other issues as quickly as possible, and save more lives,” he said.

Under the new National Health Service (NHS) plan, general practitioners (GPs) will be able to refer patients to a centre so they can access life-saving checks closer to home and be diagnosed for a range of conditions, rather than travelling to hospital.

This is expected to be more convenient for patients, more efficient and more resilient to the risk of cancelled tests in hospitals due to COVID-19.

The centres will be staffed by a multidisciplinary team of staff including nurses and radiographers, and are open seven days a week. The centres are also expected to further “level up” access to vital cancer tests and other tests to tackle the backlogs that have built up during the pandemic.

“Rapid diagnosis will save lives and these one-stop shops for checks, scans and tests in the heart of local communities will not only make services more accessible and convenient for patients but they will also help us to improve outcomes for patients with cancer and other serious conditions, ultimately sparing more patients and families the pain and trauma of disease,” said National Health Service (NHS) chief executive Amanda Pritchard.

“NHS staff have continued to provide routine care, throughout the pandemic, alongside treating around 450,000 seriously ill COVID patients in hospital, and the roll-out of these community diagnostic centres will help us to spot problems sooner, when they are easier to treat,” she said.

The NHS said that these new centres will begin providing services over the next six months, with some already up and running, and will be fully operational by March 2022.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)