CDC News Scanner: 19 Feb 2024

Your regular roundup of the latest updates and developments on community diagnostic centres.

In this inaugural edition of our community diagnostic centre news roundup: recommendations from the Patient’s Association for better access to diagnostic services, a review of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of CDCs, and case studies from NHS Providers.

Patients place importance on diagnostic services but face barriers to access – Patient Experience of Diagnostics Report

The latest report from the Patient’s Association recommends expanding community diagnostic hubs by removing NHS estate restrictions and expanding tests offered.

The report highlights that with diagnostic demand rising by 7% annually, the current 5% capacity target for the new hubs is inadequate.

Analysing opinions and experiences of more than 1,000 NHS patients, the report found that 93% of respondents wanted testing capacity to be invested in over the coming years to speed up tests and diagnosis.

Provider collaboratives building diagnostic capacity – NHS Providers

In their first instalment of their new series ‘Provider collaboratives building capacity’, NHS Providers shares case studies from Cheshire and Merseyside and Norfolk and Waveney.

“While the £2.3 billion allocated by the government to support the establishment of CDCs was very welcome, it is a limited sum given the scale of expansion needed in diagnostics across the country,” NHS providers say among the key findings.

“However, it has helped providers to come together to jointly plan and provide CDCs. One driver for providers to collaborate on diagnostics has been to strengthen their bids for this funding, by demonstrating the impact increased investment would have on system-wide performance and the ability to meet system targets.”

With the largest concentration of CDCs in the country, Cheshire and Merseyside share how collaborative working has helped their diagnostics programme to achieve a 21% increase in activity across all key diagnostic tests.

Norfolk and Waveney ICS share how their collaborative programme across three acute trusts is aiming to improve access to faster diagnosis and build diagnostic capacity.

The Effectiveness and Cost-Effectiveness of Community Diagnostic Centres: A rapid review

This review of 20 studies of community diagnostic centres examines the evidence and cost-effectiveness of the centres.

The review concludes that diagnostic centres can reduce various waiting times, including time to surgical consultation and time from consultation to treatment, but found mixed evidence for other wait time outcomes including time to diagnosis.

Additionally, whilst diagnostic centres may reduce diagnostic wait times, the ability to reduce the time to treatment is dependent on the capacity of the system to provide treatment. Additionally, evidence from the review suggested diagnostic centres are cost saving and may be more cost-effective than traditional inpatient care, but that the overall cost-effectiveness may be dependent on whether the centre is running at full capacity.

“Factors that could determine the costs incurred by a diagnostic centre include the diagnostic and clinical complexity of the patients, as well as the characteristics of the centre including the number of staff and contribution of staff time,” the review states.