Work has started on building a £4.5m community diagnostics centre in Oldham which is due to open this summer.

The new one-stop-shop for checks, scans and tests is expected to help more than 30,000 patients a year. 

Its creation is aimed at making diagnosis quicker, reducing waiting times as well as cutting down on hospital visits by allowing multiple tests on the same day.

Officials from Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust (NCA), NHS Oldham Clinical Commissioning Group and Oldham Council joined the team from DAY architects to put the first spade in the ground at the Salmon Fields site in Royton last week.

Barney Schofield, director of planning and delivery for NCA, which runs hospital and community services in Oldham as well as Bury, Rochdale and Salford, said: “Today is a really exciting and important physical milestone in our journey to providing more scans and testing for local people.

"This fantastic new development signifies innovation, cutting edge technology and shorter wait times, and means that we will be able to make diagnostic tests more convenient and deliver multiple tests on the same day for our patients, away from our main hospital sites.

"Ultimately, our ambition is to diagnose disease at an earlier stage of progression, where chances of successful treatment are improved.”

Plans have been developed for the next three years to implement similar centres across the North West to create additional capacity.

The Oldham site, which is being developed by local architects DAY will be able to provide a full range of diagnostic imaging technology and lung tests.

Through collaboration with The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, the facility will also provide patients with access to PET-CT scans, which they currently have to travel to either South Manchester or Wigan to access.

Jude Adams, Chief Delivery Officer at NCA, said: "Rapid diagnosis will save lives and this one-stop-shop for checks, scans and tests in the heart of Oldham 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.

“Our teams across the NCA have continued to provide routine care, throughout the pandemic, alongside treating thousands of seriously ill Covid patients in hospital, and the roll-out of the community diagnostic centre in Oldham will help us to spot problems sooner, when they are easier to treat.”

Nicola Hepburn, director of commissioning for NHS Oldham Clinical Commissioning Group also lent her support to the development.

Oldham Council’s Chief Executive, Harry Catherall, who attended the ceremony, said: “This development was approved by our planning committee in January, and today marks the first step towards our residents being able to access this fantastic new centre, meaning people don’t always need to go into hospital for some of the diagnostic tests which are so important to ensuring they get the right care.”