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 improve access to hospital specialists in community settings.
As part of its work to expand access to diagnostic services in the community, the National Health Service is establishing community diagnostic hubs. The hubs will provide acute diagnostic services normally provided in hospitals, including computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, X-rays, echocardiograms and endoscopy. The NHS is planning to open 44 hubs this year which will deliver an additional one million scans.