Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that new community diagnostic centres do not move diagnostic healthcare professionals from acute hospital sites.

NHS England is ensuring that local systems develop workforce plans for community diagnostic centres (CDCs), which include reliable recruitment routes to deliver the required staffing. Investment in digital diagnostics is anticipated to deliver an approximate increase of 10% in workforce productivity and reduce demands on staff in diagnostic services.

Where a dedicated workforce for a CDC is not yet in place, local systems are asked to rotate staff between acute settings and CDCs, which minimises the risk to acute services and includes the use of digital staff passports.