The hospital is no longer the centre of healthcare. That is not a slogan; it is the organising principle of the 10-Year Health Plan, and it is the belief we have been building on since 2010. Community diagnostics sit at the heart of the plan for a simple reason: a patient who can access an MRI locally does not need a hospital outpatient appointment, and a GP who receives a specialist report within days does not need to refer into secondary care. Every centre we open and every mobile unit we deploy shortens the distance between a patient and the scan they need.
Three shifts, one direction
The plan asks the health service to make three moves, and diagnostics is where all three land at once. Hospital to community: imaging delivered in the places people already go, from stadiums to high streets to GP surgery car parks. Analogue to digital: cloud PACS, a clinician portal and digital referral pathways mean a scan can be ordered and a specialist report returned without a hospital visit. Sickness to prevention: lung health checks, prostate and MSK pathways, and rapid access for non-specific symptoms find disease before it becomes complex.
Working in the community, to serve the community
We prioritise deployment where access to diagnostics is limited, where populations face health inequalities, and where travelling to an acute hospital is a genuine barrier to care. In Brighton, our flagship Community Diagnostic Centre at the Amex Stadium delivers rapid-access imaging with the NHS for patients across Sussex, and was named an exemplar by the Independent Healthcare Providers Network. In Stockport, we operate from a community clinic alongside the GP federation, one of 43 sites in the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme. In Crowborough and Seaford, imaging is delivered through existing community healthcare centres, so patients are seen in places they already know and trust. In Eastbourne, we support NHS hospital capacity so acute sites can focus on the patients who genuinely need them.
Healthcare belongs in the community, not behind hospital walls. Every decision we make is tested against that belief.
The wider infrastructure of neighbourhood health
The diagnostic layer does not stop at scanners. With PCNs, GP federations and ICSs we build diagnostic capability that is led by primary care and supported by Medical Imaging Partnership: equipment, governance, reporting and delivery, without capital investment from partners. On university campuses, diagnostic centres serve students, staff and the surrounding population, with ring-fenced research funding and protected academic time. Through NIHR and ICS-level evaluation we are building the evidence that community pathways are as safe and effective as hospital alternatives, and better for patients. And because none of it works without people, we recruit radiologists directly, bring reporting in-house, protect transferring staff, and invest in training across every role.
Clinician-led, or it does not work
The quality of a scan is set by the people behind it, not the scanner. Founded by radiologists, we attract subspecialists who report only in their area of expertise: a cardiac MRI read by a cardiac radiologist, a prostate MRI read by a uro-radiologist, an MSK scan read by an MSK specialist. That is the standard neighbourhood health deserves, and it is the standard we intend to keep setting as the network grows.