Dialling up diagnostics: The vision for Phase Two of Community Diagnostic Centres

The NHS’ Community Diagnostics Centre (CDC) programme is a key enabler to meet the increased numbers of diagnostic tests that are needed. This report provides an update on Phase One of the CDC programme from the perspective of independent healthcare providers. How far has it achieved the vision of the original goal? And what further can be done to ensure that NHS patients have access to speedy diagnosis – a challenge that is even more urgent given the growth in waiting times since the programme was launched in 2020.

This report draws on industry expertise in NHS diagnostics and ongoing work on the CDC programme itself. We believe that the CDC model is the right one for the future of NHS diagnostics. What is needed is to go further and faster. This report therefore recommends that the government and NHS England commit to a Phase Two of the CDC programme with more CDCs created across every NHS Integrated Care Board (ICB), continuing to fulfil the goals of the original Richards report, and builds on the experience of standalone sites that were developed in Phase One.