Serving patients outside the usual hospital environment

Mark Hitchman, managing director of Canon Medical Systems UK, discusses the creation of what is reportedly the UK’s first carbon-neutral built community sports and event arena with an integrated Medical Diagnostic Centre. He explains ‘why this unique fusion of sport and wellbeing will be a catalyst for positive regional health’, and highlights how its creation will ‘advance medical technology innovation, build trust in health data, and accelerate disease prevention’.

Where we live shouldn’t determine how long we live, yet across the UK there are areas of inequality where wellness can still be determined by socio-economic groupings or postcodes. This is a huge challenge for modern healthcare. Progress is being made with the government’s Levelling Up the United Kingdom strategy funding projects up and down the country to close the gap between the wealthier and poorer parts of the nation. This includes many health-related initiatives that aim to improve ‘wellbeing’ and narrow gaps in healthy life expectancy between the areas where it is lowest and highest. 

At the same time, the NHS England roll-out of Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs) has gathered pace. This is increasing the numbers of diagnostic imaging tests and MRI, CT, or ultrasound scans accessible to patients to help address some of the challenges and delays associated with the COVID era, while also looking to the future by increasing frontline diagnostic capacity. A total of 160 new CDCs has been promised by March 2025, and latest figures suggest that the initiative has delivered an additional three million checks since the programme started in mid-2021.¹