Just a quarter of the 69 new NHS diagnostic centres that the health secretary last month boasted were “up and running” may have actually opened, openDemocracy can reveal.
Sajid Javid told Parliament on 8 February that scores of “new community diagnostic centres” had “already opened across England in convenient places such as shopping malls and car parks,” where they would be a “major” part of action to clear NHS waiting lists and improve access to cancer screening.
But neither the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) nor NHS England was able to say where the 69 centres are, or provide evidence to substantiate the health secretary’s claim. openDemocracy was eventually directed to a speculative list, published in October, of 57 sites that were due to open this year – but few of these actually appear to be in operation or offering anything significantly new as of 2022.
