Bringing Health to the High Street: The Fight for Plymouth’s Community Diagnostic Centre

Our brilliant NHS and social care staff in Plymouth work their socks off every single day, but for years we have seen the strain on our local system play out in real-time: severe ambulance waiting times, a critical shortage of hospital beds at Derriford, a social care system under immense pressure, and deep-seated gaps in GP and dentistry access across Plymouth.

But last month, after years of relentless campaigning, we have finally seen real, tangible hope. On the very site where we were once told our dreams of a city-centre health revolution were dead, the new Plymouth Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) has officially opened its doors, and I was incredibly honoured to be asked to open it.

This achievement is personal for me, and it is a massive victory for our city. For years, I have consistently fought to bring “health to the high street” in Plymouth. Back in October 2018, I backed efforts to repurpose a part of our post-war city centre to build a trailblazing “super health hub”.

Together with the council and the NHS we worked up that idea, eventually folding it into a nationwide NHS pilot programme known as Cavell Centres. We fought tooth and nail for it. We secured locked-in, cross-party support from both Labour and Conservative local councillors and MPs, and we got our business case further ahead than any other site in the country.

Then came the gut punch. In late 2022, the Conservative government pulled the plug on the £41 million national funding allocation, collapsing the entire project. For many, it felt like the rug had been pulled out from under our community just as the JCBs were preparing to clear the ground.

But in Plymouth, we are innovative and creative because we have to be. We refused to take no for an answer. When one giant building concept was blocked, we adapted our strategy. If we couldn’t build it all under one roof immediately, we would deliver it step-by-step, building a multi-facility “Health Village” right in the heart of our city. That was my proposal: health on the high street, and a network of new NHS offerings in our city centre to take pressure off Derriford.

In 2022 I secured a Westminster Hall debate in Parliament to suggest the best route to making this a reality and, after many years of effort and working with the NHS and Plymouth City Council, we have made this happen: the opening of the CDC is the magnificent first anchor of that vision.

Built on the Colin Campbell Court car park in the West End, this new £22 million facility is exactly where investment is needed most. Stonehouse is a community full of life and fantastic people, but it faces extreme economic and social challenges, with life expectancy significantly lower than the national average and an unfair share of health inequalities. Historically, this single community has been responsible for approximately 20% of Derriford Hospital’s emergency admissions.

This isn’t just about healthcare; it’s about the survival of our high street. By replacing empty, post-war retail units with a bustling health village, we are giving people a brand-new reason to visit the West End, supporting local businesses, and creating jobs. People who go for a scan may do some shopping, buy a coffee or have lunch. That all supports local businesses and that’s how we breathe new life into our city centre.

But early diagnostics is only half the battle. To truly bring health to the high street, we also had to address the crushing dental crisis plaguing our communities. That is why I am incredibly proud that just up the road on New George Street, the new Peninsula Dental Social Enterprise (PDSE) City Centre Hub is up and running and actively seeing patients.

Housed in the old First Stop Shop, this state-of-the-art facility features 13 chairs for urgent dental care. It brings final-year dental students from the University of Plymouth, consistently ranked as the best place to study dentistry in England, to work directly under the supervision of qualified specialists.

Crucially, it provides urgent care for local people who do not have a regular NHS dentist and are suffering from pain, infection, or trauma. It is a brilliant double-win: it gives the next generation of dental trainees hands-on experience, and it provides vital, free-of-charge care to the vulnerable communities who need it most. You can access this service via NHS 111.

The structural completion and opening of this first CDC building is a monumental team-Plymouth success story, but it is only the beginning. Already, public consultations have begun for a purpose-built, four-storey second building on the site to expand these diagnostic pathways even further. That’s extra funding for Plymouth from the Labour Government that working with the council and the NHS I have helped secure.

My long-term mission remains unchanged: we still need to fully replicate the primary care, mental health, debt advice, and dentistry services that were promised in the original super health hub plans. The new CDC buildings and urgent care hubs are a start.

The CDC tackles this crisis head-on by acting as a pocket hospital on the high street for tests, scans and diagnostics. By providing tens of thousands of critical tests, scans, and checks – including MRIs, CT scans, X-rays, and ultrasounds – outside of a traditional hospital setting, we are catching illnesses like cancer much earlier. As a cancer survivor myself, I know firsthand that early diagnosis saves lives.

Every single bus route in Plymouth leads to the city centre. This makes the CDC incredibly accessible, not just for the residents of Stonehouse, Millbay, and Devonport, but for people right across our city. It’s opposite a huge car park too on Western Approach. Crucially, this facility will operate seven days a week and is designed to handle over 90,000 tests a year. By moving routine testing away from our main acute hospital, we are actively taking the pressure off the emergency department at Derriford by reducing the sheer volume of people who have to travel miles up the road just for a scan.