A new healthcare facility is set to open in South Birmingham, providing patients with easy access to diagnostic tests closer to home - reducing the need for hospital visits and ensuring they receive the care they need, sooner.
The South Birmingham Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC), which will open in summer 2025 and be located in the shopping units in Maypole Lane, Maypole, is being delivered in partnership between NHS Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board (ICB), University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB), and the UK’s largest specialist provider of diagnostic solutions, InHealth.
With funding provided by NHS England (NHSE), thousands of people will be able to visit it every year to get a wide range of diagnostic tests in one central place, away from a busy hospital site.
It will offer high tech scanning, including MRI, CT, ultrasound and X-ray and other health screening services, helping to detect a range of conditions quicker, ensuring patients can then be treated faster.
Patients will be able to access the services via a clinician referral.
The services will be for the use of the populations across South Birmingham and the greater Birmingham area.
It will be one of three CDCs in Birmingham and Solihull - Washwood Heath CDC launched in June 2023, while North Solihull CDC is due to open at Chelmsley Wood Shopping Centre in early 2025.
InHealth, NHS Birmingham and Solihull ICB and UHB are working with Real Estate Investors Plc, landlords for the building in which the CDC will be located.
Faith Button, Chief Delivery Officer at NHS Birmingham and Solihull ICB, said: “It’s great to see work starting on this new Community Diagnostic Centre, which will ensure more checks, tests and scans are available sooner for people in South Birmingham and the greater Birmingham area.
"This will be a fantastic resource for local people, helping to get the diagnosis and care they need as soon as possible and close to home”.
Martin Richardson, UHB Hospital Executive Director and Senior Responsible Officer for Diagnostics and Cancer for the ICB, said: “The opening of this Community Diagnostic Centre, in conjunction with the other new geographically located CDCs, positively transforms local and wider system access to important diagnostic tests that will more conveniently streamline assessments to improve integrated healthcare and address health inequalities.”
Geoff Searle, Chief Executive at InHealth, said: “We're incredibly pleased to be working in partnership with our NHS partners in the Midlands to create this new centre, which signifies another step forward in providing additional capacity, improving health outcomes and increasing the range, scale and accessibility of services for the local population of South Birmingham and the Birmingham area.
"InHealth has been working in partnership with the NHS for more than 30 years, with more than 20 existing Community Diagnostic Centres in England, so we’re delighted to be expanding this model across the country”.
Ian Clark, Director at Real Estate Investors Plc, said “We are delighted to be working in partnership with InHealth, NHS Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board, and University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust to bring this vital new Community Diagnostic Centre to Maypole Lane.
"At Real Estate Investors Plc, we are pleased to be able to provide the space for such an important initiative that will directly benefit the health and wellbeing of the local community.
"We look forward to supporting this partnership and seeing the positive impact it will have for patients in South Birmingham.”
The new centre is also part of a national programme to help continue the recovery of services left overwhelmed by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government has committed a £2.3billion national investment to open up to 160 CDCs by 2025, providing approximately nine million additional tests a year for people nationwide.