Plans for a new community diagnostic centre and hip and knee op hub
Council papers reveal that Park Farm in Wellingborough looks to be the new base for the county’s third community diagnostic centre
By Sarah Ward
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An undeveloped parcel of land on a Wellingborough industrial estate is being lined up for a new NHS community diagnostic centre and orthopaedic hub.
North Northamptonshire Council is planning to sell the land at Booth Drive at Park Farm to Kettering General Hospital NHS Trust for an undisclosed sum.
Council papers published today reveal the hospital trust had approached both North and West unitary councils for a site and are favourable to the Park Farm site due to its central location between the county’s two acute hospitals.
It will include four endoscopy suites, two Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanners, two Computed Tomography scanners, separate rooms for X-Ray and ultrasound and additional consulting rooms for specialist tests.
University Hospitals Northamptonshire - which is the collaborative group for the general hospitals at Kettering and Northampton - also intends to build an elective orthopaedic hub on site that will be open six days a week and should deliver at least 2,000 operations a year for routine procedures such as hop and knee replacements.
The CDC, would be the third in the county following on from the new centres at to the Willowbrook health estate in Corby and Kings Heath in Northampton which opened last year. It will be larger than the first two and have capacity for 50,000 diagnostic tests a year and open seven days a week and twelve hours a day.
The report says the growth of the county has necessitated the new CDC, which is planned to open in 2028, after planning applications have been granted.
It says:
“Northamptonshire is experiencing growing demand for diagnostic tests. Without additional capacity, waiting times will continue to rise and pressure will increase on our already busy hospital sites. Rising levels of chronic disease—such as cancer, heart disease, and respiratory illness—mean that patients require more frequent and earlier testing.
“The Government is investing heavily in Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs) to deliver faster diagnosis, shorter waiting times and treatments, and more convenient local access for patients.”
It says NHS funding for the CDC is time limited, although does not say how much the trust has received for the centre and orthopaedic hub. The county was allocated £17m in 2022 for the first two CDCs.
The council is not making public the sale price, but it will be more than £1m which will go into the capital funding pot for other projects. The authority’s Asset Management Review Group - made up of council officers and chaired by the assistant director of assets and environment Jonathan Waterworth- declared the site surplus in May this year.
The land, which is close to the Bannantyne Health Centre off Park Farm Way, was acquired by the former Wellingborough Borough Council in the 1970s as part of a 370 acre deal and developed into the industrial estate. It has to be cleared of fly tipping and vegetation before it is sold.
The council’s executive will make a decision at its meeting on Tuesday, August 11.
This is public money being thrown at developers for land that is already in public ownership. NHS money will be poured at the expense of the tax payers. It is my spouse experience of Kettering hospital is a place were you send people to die.It is an awful hospital not fit for purpose. King's Heath facilities are great. However has limitation of treatments.
the hubs are run by outsourced companies rather than by NHS. There may be a keenness to pick up the bog standard stuff (at a charge) but to back off complex matters.