Patients are now benefiting from the creation of a new £23 million Lincoln Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC), handed over recently by hospital construction and modular healthcare building specialist, MTX Contracts.
The CDC is one of two built by MTX concurrently in Lincoln and Skegness using Modern Methods of Construction. To create the new facilities for United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (ULTH), precisely engineered structural steel modules were factory-manufactured off site while groundworks were under way to create the foundations at the two sites. Mechanical and electrical services were manufactured as modules where appropriate to speed up the construction process and reduce costs.
In all, 71 offsite-manufactured structural units were craned into place to create the two buildings – 42 in Lincoln, and 29 at Skegness.
MTX says employing MMC enables it to deliver ‘fully compliant, high-quality’ facilities for NHS Trusts ‘faster, safer, greener and more cost effectively’, compared with conventional building techniques.
Lincoln CDC, on Lincoln Science and Innovation Park, offers a range of diagnostic services – including X-ray, MRI, CT, and non-obstetric ultrasound, and dedicated facilities to support the training of future radiographers, with ULTH becoming one of England’s first NHS Trusts to link directly with a school of radiography, at the University of Lincoln.
The Skegness facility, on Old Wainfleet Road, brought a number of NHS diagnostic services to the town for the first time, including CT and MRI scanners, echocardiograms, and dental X-ray. Services available at Skegness CDC include non-obstetric ultrasound and a range of physiological testing, such as blood tests for adults and children over five, standard ECGs, and 24-hour blood pressure testing. Blood testing for chemotherapy patients is also available, in the first step to develop a chemotherapy service there.
Professor Karen Dunderdale, CEO of Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals Group, said: “We are very proud to be delivering new diagnostic services that we know will make a huge difference to the local community. The CDCs offer more choice and convenience to help reduce travel for patients, while increasing the number of appointments to help bring down waiting times for diagnostic tests.”
Community diagnostic centres offer a range of elective (planned) diagnostic services, away from main hospital sites, providing easier and quicker access to tests, potentially closer to patients’ homes. Each centre in Lincolnshire is designed to consider the local community’s specific health needs.
