The Clinical Imaging Facility at Swansea University joins our network in October 2026, extending a network that already runs across the South East, London and Greater Manchester. Diagnostic imaging is not new to South Wales, and neither is this unit: what changes is who runs it.
The facility sits on the Singleton Park campus as a joint venture between Swansea University and Swansea Bay University Health Board, providing MRI and CT across neuro, MSK, vascular, body, cardiac and gynaecological imaging for adults, alongside a research programme covering oncology trials, the clinical application of MRI and imaging-based clinical pathways.
Continuity first
Taking on a service that people already use sets the order of priorities. Patients and referrers should keep the service they know, and notice the improvements rather than the handover. Replicating a model is not copying and pasting it: localised delivery means understanding a region's healthcare landscape, its pathways and its people, so the service fits local care rather than asking local care to fit the service.
The principle behind it is the one behind every centre we open. A patient who can have a scan locally does not need a hospital outpatient appointment. A clinician who receives a specialist report within days does not need to refer into secondary care. We prioritise deployment where access to diagnostics is limited and where travelling to an acute hospital is a genuine barrier to care.
The research continues
The facility was built around medical research and education, and that is the part we most want to protect. Its programme runs along three strands: pharmaceutical trials in oncology, the clinical application of MRI, and the development of imaging-based clinical pathways, with teaching built into the week rather than squeezed around it. Our commitment is to support the next chapter of that work, to invest in upgraded imaging equipment, and to build towards a full diagnostic and treatment set-up on the site, so more of a patient's journey can happen in one place.
What we add
The unit keeps running; what changes is the organisation behind it. Scans are reported by subspecialist radiologists working in their own area, MSK, neuro, uro-radiology, cardiac and oncology, with most reports reaching the referrer within one to five working days and urgent findings escalated immediately. Referrers get our secure clinician portal for images and reports, and our referral centre answers seven days a week: Monday to Friday 8am to 6.30pm, Saturday and Sunday 8am to 4pm.
Four strands, one unit
A community imaging service is sustainable when the scanner is not idle between lists, so we work across four kinds of demand. NHS: over 80% of our activity is delivered in partnership with the NHS, and in Wales that means working with the local health board. Private: private and self-paying patients are scanned at our centres alongside NHS patients, and Prime Health, our private healthcare brand, adds the wider services, which offers an unrivalled private patient experience alongside private GP appointments and full pathways. Research: university partnerships bring ring-fenced research funding, protected academic time and evaluation that proves community pathways work. Sport: rapid-access MSK imaging reported by MSK subspecialists, scheduled around training and fixtures.
Welsh speakers
Wales is a bilingual country. Our own staff at the unit do not speak Welsh, so we use professional translation and interpretation services: patients will be able to use Welsh when they contact us, at the centre and in our correspondence. Fair access to diagnostics includes language, not just distance.
Bydd yr uned ddelweddu bresennol yn Abertawe yn ymuno â'n rhwydwaith ym mis Hydref 2026. Nid yw delweddu yn newydd i dde Cymru: bydd y gwasanaeth yn parhau.What happens next
We will confirm the detail as the handover progresses. Clinicians who already refer into the unit do not need to do anything differently, and we will write to referrers before anything changes. Health boards, primary care, universities, sports organisations and private partners can talk to us now through the form on the Swansea page, and patients who want to hear when more detail is available can register their interest by email.
If you refer patients for imaging, our guide to referral routes, what a referral needs and what happens next sets out how that works:how clinicians can work with us →.