In a landmark agreement, the NHS has acquired the formerly privately run Rutherford Cancer Centre North West from global investor and fund manager Equitix. The facility will now be transformed into a new community diagnostics centre, which will be owned and operated by the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust on behalf of the NHS in Cheshire and Merseyside. It’s expected to open by the summer.

Community diagnostic centres provide the NHS with additional capacity to carry out vital tests and scans in locations away from busy acute hospitals. The new Paddington Village CDC will offer tests to people referred by their GP or other health professionals to check for a wide range of conditions, including musculoskeletal problems, cancer, cardiac issues, and gastrointestinal disease.

Referred patients will receive a confirmed diagnosis so they can get the treatment they need, or an all-clear, putting their minds at rest. This is particularly important where someone has symptoms that could be cancer.

Initially, the CDC will offer CT, MR and ultrasound scans, as well as blood tests. Future phases will see it expand to provide more tests, further boosting NHS diagnostic capacity in response to local demand.

The NHS in Cheshire and Merseyside launched the first CDC nationally in St Helens and there are now six such centres in the region – Ellesmere Port, Liverpool, Northwich, Southport, St Helens and Wirral – with a further three, including Paddington Village, due to open in the next six months.

Dr Liz Bishop, chief executive of the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust and senior responsible officer for diagnostics in Cheshire and Merseyside, said: “People in Liverpool are more likely to experience ill health than the national average so it’s particularly important that they can get the tests they need when symptoms develop. This approval for a new community diagnostic centre in Paddington Village is fantastic news for the city and will significantly enhance CT, MRI and ultrasound capacity for the NHS in Liverpool, helping people get diagnosed and access any treatment they need as soon as possible.”

NHS England’s medical director for transformation and secondary care, Dr Vin Diwakar, said: “These centres are vital to ensure patients receive quicker diagnoses and quicker treatment, with a record number of tests and checks delivered in January, helping to improve outcomes for a range of health conditions, including cancer, and helping us deliver on the next stage of our elective recovery plan to reduce the longest waits for care.”

Repurposing of cancer centre portfolio

Equitix was an investor in Rutherford Health before the company went into liquidation in June 2022. The private oncology provider had been building a network of proton beam therapy centres around the UK, prior to the pandemic. Since then, Equitix has taken over ownership of the Rutherford Health cancer centre portfolio, which consists of assets in Liverpool, Wokingham, Newport (Wales), and Bedlington.

Equitix chief operating officer Siôn Jones commented: “We’re delighted to be able to help support the provision of this state-of-the-art centre at Paddington Village, which will provide the people of Liverpool with additional capacity to carry out vital tests and treatments in a comfortable environment. Equitix has been a trusted partner with the NHS for over 15 years, co-operating to provide innovative ways to help them deliver their patient care model and this is another example of that partnership.”

The new Paddington Village CDC will be the second such venture that the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre has opened. In 2021, it opened one of the nation’s first community diagnostics centres – Clatterbridge Diagnostics in Wirral – in partnership with Wirral University Teaching Hospital. Paddington Village CDC will serve as a “spoke” to this centre.

Equitix continues to work with public- and private-sector partners to reopen the Rutherford portfolio of cancer centres it acquired last summer as soon as possible.