A cutting-edge testing hub at the Metrocentre has been praised for showing the “best of the NHS”.
Health minister Karin Smyth visited the Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) at the Gateshead shopping mall on Thursday.
The multi-million pound hub opened in the old House of Fraser store in October 2024, with the aim of taking test facilities out of crowded hospitals and into a more convenient location.
75,000 patients have been seen at the centre, which offers services including MRI scans, ultrasounds, and echocardiograms and is now reporting among the fastest diagnostic times in the country – meaning people can start the treatment they need more quickly.
Ms Smyth said on her visit that the CDC was “absolutely what we call bringing the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS, and we are seeing the best here in Gateshead” – offering a less stressful environment for both patients and staff.
She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “This is exactly what we want to try and do. Patients like it because they can park, it is less stressful – talking to the clinicians, they recognise that people are less stressed when they come here. It doesn’t feel like a hospital – it is not as busy, you haven’t got the emergency going on, so people know that they will be seen on time, they will be very quick, and can get on with the rest of their day.”
While there are 170 CDCs across England, the Metrocentre facility is currently the only one across all of Tyne and Wear, Northumberland, or County Durham. The other nearest ones are in Stockton and Workington.
It opens from 8am to 8pm every day and is staffed by more than 130 NHS workers who rotate between hospital shifts and the CDC.
Gareth Davies, the centre’s clinical manager, said that the high-tech hub offered a “bit of a relief” and respite from hospital work that “improves mental health and reduces burnout” among NHS staff.
He added: “One of the first comments I got when we opened was ‘is this private?’ Patients are so used to the NHS being quite frantic, erratic, lots of delays to your appointments. [Here] the general feel is that it is calm, because it is all planned, it is away from the acute side. All the appointments are timed so you have no acute patients or wards or emergencies getting ahead of your appointment.”
The CDC is now looking to expand further into the defunct department store’s footprint and expand the range of services it can offer.
Sean Fenwick, acting chief executive of the Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust, confirmed there are “definitive plans for phase two” of its development and that it would “continue to grow and flourish”.
