The idea for Corby CDC, which celebrated its first anniversary in June, was a long time in the making.

Grimmett said it was first prompted by Professor Mike Richards' National Cancer Plan in 2000 which called for an increase in diagnostic capacity to prepare for a higher number of cases.

CDCs are intended to be an easily accessible place in the heart of the community, open seven days a week, in order to encourage people to come for an earlier diagnostic test.

Three services

UHN originally applied for funding for three services comprising a large CDC with endoscopy facilities, a standard service in Corby and a smaller hub service in Kings Heath.

‘We did a review of all of our population health dynamics where our biggest areas of deprivation are and where people struggle with access,' Grimmett explained.

‘We did a heat map of that. We looked at NHS premises and public sector premises and layered that over the heat map.

‘There wasn't any public estate that was big enough to for us to be able to really convert into CDCs, so we decided that we would need to build them as a fresh facility rather than refurbished, so we picked Corby as our standard CDC and Kings Heath as a hub.'

Addressing inequalities

Grimmett said while many CDCs were being used to add extra hospital capacity, UHN had taken a more focused approach to address inequalities of access in its local population.

The Kings Heath hub was the first to open in April 2025, followed shortly afterwards by the Corby CDC in June 2025.

The hub, which includes an MRI, CT and echo ultrasound, is adjacent to a GP practice in a deprived area of Northampton.

‘It's an area that isn't just deprived, it's got high crime rates, it's got all of those kind of socioeconomic issues, and we got a fair amount of challenge about putting it there, because people thought it was going to get vandalised,' Grimmett noted.

‘We did big community events to launch it and it's been massively welcomed by the local community because they feel like somebody cares about them, so they actually care for it.

‘It's also seen a massive increase in the number of people that have registered to be part of that GP practice, a lot of whom didn't have a GP practice before.'

Similarly, Corby was chosen as an underserved area, with a life expectancy 10 years less than Kettering just nine miles away. The trust received over £17m in NHSE funding for the two services.

New pathways

New pathways are currently being trialled at Corby, including asthma and dementia care.

A child with suspected asthma can have several tests in the presence of a specialist who can offer support.

‘It's not just a hospital test, we have a specialist nurse there that can give the family tips to help manage it all in the same place so we are able to put the patient at the heart of the diagnosis,' Grimmett explained.

In dementia, Corby is running a national pilot where people referred for diagnosis are supported by a Northamptonshire Carer specialist.

‘It's a one stop service in terms of diagnosis, but also you're getting that more well-rounded support in how to cope with things,' Grimmett explained.

‘Your carer is there as part of that conversation. It's also the ability to wrap care around pathways and individual people, as opposed to a bit more of the clinical experience of going from a GP into a hospital specialist and then back out.'

Other pathways, including breathlessness and postmenopausal bleeding, are operated in partnership with voluntary sector groups to provide wellbeing and financial advice as well as clinical support.

‘I'm not saying people sometimes don't need hospitals,' Grimmett stressed.

‘Sometimes they will need to still come to the hospital, but it's more about helping people, part of that left shift and being preventative with care closer to home.

‘We want to work as an anchor institution and look after our local communities more broadly.'

Kings Heath is also one of two areas chosen by Northamptonshire ICB for a neighbourhood health centre.

Easing pressures

Corby and Kings Heath have significantly eased pressure on Kettering General Hospital.

‘Kettering's MRI and CT waiting lists have dropped significantly since these facilities opened,' Grimmett told me.

‘We weren't meeting the six-week national standard before these facilities opened, we are now, and we're down to about four weeks for an MRI appointment.'

Corby CDC's first year in figures
Cost	£11.7m
Diagnostic tests and scans in first nine months	55,000
Diagnostic tests and scans (second year forecast)	94,000
MRI scans	5,145
CT scans	8,171
Ultrasound scans	8,745
Echocardiography tests	3,139
Blood tests	Over 25,000

 

More to come

The third, large CDC is scheduled to open by the end of 2027 in partnership with a private healthcare company that will be selected in the next few months.

A site for the service is in the final stages of agreement, in a centrally located position in the county accessible to a large number of the population.   

The facility will be run by a private healthcare operator because of cost and recruitment challenges.

‘They are going to bring in their MRIs, CTs, endoscopy pods, put it on the land, and then basically run all of the activity through that for us and we will pay per patient,' Grimmett explained.

The strategy director said partnering with a private company also made sense because of the difficulty in finding additional radiologists.

‘We've got two CDCs open, we've got the radiology departments at the hospital at Kettering and at Northampton, and we just can't recruit anymore,' she said.

UHN already works with AML which helps staff its MRI and RCT machines.

You can find out more about Corby CDC here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq-asZDEDOU