10 Million Pound Community Diagnostic Centre Opens

A new Community Diagnostic Centre at the Salmons Field site in Oldham for the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, which will allow patients across Oldham and the surrounding area to benefit from earlier diagnostic testing closer to home, has reached practical completion, and is now open to the public.

Lee Wakemans provided project management and cost management services, as well as acting as the principal designer from RIBA 3, through to stage 6, for Alliance Medical Limited, Europe's leading independent provider of imaging services.

Dave Curzon, Senior Project Manager at Lee Wakemans said, "We have a long-standing and productive relationship with Alliance Medical and have been working with them since 2014 on a number of projects including a national roll-out programme of diagnostic centres across the UK.

The modular element of the Oldham Community Diagnostics Hub is now complete, and the external works are being completed. The use of modular buildings for hospital sites are advantageous as they save valuable time as the core structures are made off-site, whilst siteworks and foundations can be simultaneously performed on-site. This causes less disruption and will allow for people to receive their scans, checks and tests which will help save lives and improve people's quality of life for health conditions."

The one-stop-shop for checks, scans, and tests, is one of the first six in the region and one of the country's largest out-of-hospital diagnostic centres.

The centre, which will be open seven days a week from 8am to 8pm, is set to offer x-rays, MRIs, as well as heart, lung and blood tests to make diagnosis quicker, reducing waiting times, and cut down on hospital visits by allowing multiple tests on the same day.