Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health, visited the Ambulatory Care and Diagnostics (ACAD) Centre construction site at Heartlands Hospital to see first-hand how work on the new build is progressing and to meet staff involved in the capital development project.

During the visit, the Minister, accompanied by CEO, Dr Dave Rosser and Chief Operating Officer, Jonathan Brotherton, was given a tour of the site and chatted with nursing, outpatients, theatres, imaging and estates staff about plans for the centre and the benefits it will provide.

With the main phase of construction having started in December 2020, construction work is going well with the Kier building contractors, who have progressed the foundations for the ground and first level of the building. 

Due to open in 2022, the ACAD Centre is one of 20 NHS capital development projects to receive a share of the £850 million funding for new facilities announced by the Department of Health and Social Care in August 2019.

The four-storey ACAD building will house a range of services, including outpatients, endoscopy, day case surgery and imaging, and will care for nearly half a million patients each year.

The Minister said during the visit: 

"This is a £97m project and it's a model of how care can be provided in the future, because it brings together all the different types of diagnostics – MRI, CT scans, and X-rays, making sure that people can have a one-stop shop to find out what's wrong with them, and then also the treatment centres if you then need to go and see a clinician.  

"I've been hearing from the site managers and also the nurses and clinicians about how it's going to make a huge difference to have that in one place so that the patient who doesn't need stay in hospital can come in, find out what's wrong with them, have the diagnostics and get the treatment on the same day.

"It's a very exciting project, I'm really glad to see it coming out of the ground, because we've got a huge backlog that we've got to deal with in the NHS because of COVID-19, and it's taking the sort of approach that is going to help us to make sure that we get through all these treatments that are going to be needed. This investment is just part of that plan."

The visit follows a virtual visit in December by Edward Argar MP, Minister of State for Health, to mark the ‘first dig’ and burial of a time capsule during the Hospital’s 125^th Anniversary year.

Please visit the ACAD website for more information on the project.