Broad Marsh latest: Plans revealed for ‘state-of-the-art’ £25m NHS facility at former Intu shopping centre

Plans for a new £25 million NHS facility at the Broad Marsh regeneration site in Nottingham city centre have been revealed today (Thursday, February 1). 

Last year the Department for Health and Social Care announced funding for 13 Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs) across the UK, including one in the centre of Nottingham. 

CDCs are designed as a one-stop shop that supports GPs by providing direct access to diagnostics services such as MRI, CT, x-ray, ultrasound, echocardiography, ECG, and lung function testing. 

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This allows for more rapid diagnosis of conditions such as cancer, which in turn will help patients access the life-saving treatments they need more quickly.

The new building is set to open in the Spring of 2025 and will be leased from Nottingham City Council. 

It’s estimated that the facility will provide an additional 100,000 diagnostic appointments each year. 

Once at full capacity it will provide in excess of 140,000 appointments annually, which will be available to patients through hospital consultants initially, and eventually also via GPs.

Last December a temporary diagnostics facility was set up at Nottingham Railway Station.

The CDC will create 75 new jobs in Nottingham across a range of disciplines including consultant radiologists, radiographers, imaging assistants, physiologists and administrators. 

When the unit is at full capacity it will employ 135 staff.

A formal planning application will be submitted later this year.

Nottingham City Council Leader, Councillor David Mellen, said: “This is another major step forward in the transformation of the Broad Marsh area that has been taking place over the last couple of years.

“Following the opening of the new Central Library and with work underway on the new Green Heart city centre park, we’re really pleased to be able to announce with Nottingham University Hospitals that this fantastic new health facility will also be located at Broad Marsh.

“When the shopping centre closed following the collapse of Intu, we said we wanted to see something different for Broad Marsh, not another shopping centre. 

“This was underlined by the feedback we received from local people as part of the Big Conversation engagement exercise, the largest the council had ever undertaken."

“The Community Diagnostic Centre is exactly the kind of facility everyone wants to see at Broad Marsh.

“It will provide a boost for businesses and jobs in the area by increasing footfall. By reusing part of the frame of the old shopping centre, as proposed in the Broad Marsh vision, the building will support the city’s ambitions to be carbon neutral by 2028.

“It will also help address some of the significant health issues and inequalities Nottingham faces as a city. 

“People will be able to access vital health services right in the centre of the city, near to the new bus station and car park and a short walk from the train station, in a state-of-the-art building surrounded by new people-friendly green streets and public spaces.”