Two months ago, the NHS hit 1,000,000 tests in Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs), centres offering additional tests including endoscopy, imaging, pathology, physiological measurements and more. The North West contributed 165,000 (16.5%) of these tests. While most of these sites are based within or on the outskirts of established healthcare centres, they are not connected to hospital A&Es, which means that scheduled tests are usually unaffected by incoming emergencies.

Additional activity in CDCs continues to ramp up as more sites opened in Bolton and Victoria Infirmary, Cheshire. On 29 July, Victoria Infirmary had an official opening of their CDC though it had already been officially open for three weeks as a soft launch and since the phased introduction of services last October, an additional 12,000 tests have been carried out as part of the CDC programme.

This month, Wirral CDC also welcomed its 25,000th patient after officially launching in October 2021.

Since the announcement of the million tests being completed nationally, CDCs in the North West have completed another 59,000 tests up to the week ending 10 July 2022. This makes the activity in CDCs across the North West 223,839 tests completed. This is broken down as follows:

· Endoscopy: 11,817

· Imaging: 109,844

· Pathology: 30,877

· Physiological Measurements: 15,341

· Other / Misc: 55,960

This also means that the North West is ranked second out of the seven regions in terms of activity delivered to date, which is an impressive and encouraging sign for NHS recovery in the North West going forwards.