A modular CT building created in five months on a listed hospital site is creating much-needed extra capacity to address the COVID-19 backlog.

The launch of the Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) at Northwich’s Victoria Infirmary has enabled more patients to be seen for quick frontline diagnostic imaging, reducing waiting times and freeing up pressure on hospital scanners.

In less than a year, thousands more patients have attended the ‘one stop shop’ for CT scans and other tests, improving the quality of care experience and reducing the need for multiple attendances at different hospital locations. 

And the modular building has been fully integrated onto the existing Victoria Infirmary listed building by Canon Medical Systems UK.

The turnkey project involved creating the additional CT scanning facility by demolishing an old casualty building, knocking through, and adding an integrated modular building containing an AI-assisted Aquilion Prime SP CT scanner

Karen Bowman, general manager at the Victoria Infirmary, part of Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Two thousand outpatient, follow-up, or high-risk query CT scans have been enabled in nine months due to the creation of the CDC.

“This means more people have been seen sooner than would have been previously possible. We are even calling people to arrange CT scans on the same day they have seen their GP.

The success of the CDC so far has also enabled us to start conversations about enhancing other care pathways via a ‘one-stop-shop’ approach, such as our cancer services

“The dedicated CDC also means the pressure burden on our acute hospital scanners at Leighton Hospital has been relieved – that is thousands of CT appointments removed from our frontline acute scanners, giving them the dedicated focus they need for emergency or advanced imaging such as cardiac and CT colonoscopy.”

She adds: “The CDC model has proven itself here and given us confidence.

“And, as we start to plan our new hospital, we will look to focus on provision for acutely-unwell patients and those with higher-risk, elective care needs and move more diagnostics and non-hospital reliant services closer to our patients’ homes.

“The success of the CDC so far has also enabled us to start conversations about enhancing other care pathways via a ‘one-stop-shop’ approach, such as our cancer services.”

The Aquilion Prime SP CT scanner will be the fourth Canon Medical scanner at the trust.

It brings the Advanced Intelligent Clear-IQ Engine (AICE) for superior image quality at low dose and high speed, plus provides additional advanced applications that help with clinical procedures. This includes Single Energy Metal Artifact Reduction (SEMAR) to work around visualising elderly patients with prostheses, stents, pacemakers, or tooth replacements; and ^SURESubtraction to enhance iodine imaging with colour mapping.”  

Billy Erwin, account manager at Canon Medical Systems UK, said: “Separating acute and outpatient care is at the heart of the CDC philosophy to create efficiencies and speed up patient diagnosis.

“Victoria Infirmary has achieved so much already by embracing its CDC opportunity and we look forward to supporting the trust to optimise future plans to streamline pathways and evolve its community service offerings.”