£237m for Community Diagnostic Centres: Why Workforce Planning Is the Missing Piece in NHS Diagnostics Expansion
The Government’s latest £237 million investment into Community Diagnostic Centres is welcome news for patients, NHS providers and diagnostic services across England. According to the GOV.UK announcement, the funding will support 36 new and expanded Community Diagnostic Centres — including four new CDCs, 17 physically expanded centres and 15 centres receiving targeted enhancements, with additional capacity across MRI, CT, ultrasound, audiology, ophthalmology and respiratory diagnostics. The NHS carried out a record 29 million diagnostic tests in 2025.
This is a positive step. Community-based diagnostics can help patients access tests more conveniently, support earlier diagnosis and reduce pressure on acute hospital sites. But capital investment alone will not solve the diagnostic backlog.
The key question the Government’s announcement leaves open is a simple one: who will staff the scanners, clinics and diagnostic services needed to make this expansion work?
The Society of Radiographers has raised the right concern
The Society of Radiographers has welcomed the ambition behind the CDC programme but has warned that the benefits of expansion could be undermined without a proper workforce plan. The SoR asked, plainly, where the staff needed to deliver the promises will come from.
New scanners, new rooms and new facilities only create real patient impact when there are enough trained professionals available to deliver the service safely and consistently. The SoR also warned that without workforce growth, CDC expansion could lead to under-provision in community settings or pull radiography staff away from acute hospitals — creating pressure elsewhere in the system. That risk should not be underestimated.
Diagnostic capacity depends on workforce capacity
The UK’s diagnostic workforce is already under pressure. Across many parts of the NHS and independent healthcare sector, demand remains high for diagnostic radiographers, CT and MRI radiographers, mammographers, sonographers, echocardiographers, audiologists, ophthalmic professionals, respiratory physiologists and wider AHP and HSS professionals.
The CDC model depends heavily on these specialist professionals. Without them, new facilities may not operate at full capacity, waiting lists remain stubbornly high and acute hospital departments continue to carry the burden. This is particularly important in ultrasound, MRI and CT, where staffing gaps can quickly affect patient flow, cancer pathways and planned care recovery.
CDC expansion creates a major workforce challenge for NHS and independent providers
For NHS and independent healthcare providers, this investment is both an opportunity and a delivery challenge. The opportunity is clear: more diagnostic capacity, closer to patients, with the potential to reduce waiting times and support earlier diagnosis.
The challenge is equally clear. Diagnostic services will need flexible, scalable and compliant workforce models that can respond to demand across multiple settings. This may include insourcing support, flexible staffing, permanent recruitment, international candidate pipelines, modality-specific workforce planning and governance-compliant rapid mobilisation. For Community Diagnostic Centres to succeed, workforce planning needs to be built into the operational model from the start — not treated as a problem to solve after the facility is open.
International recruitment and flexible staffing will remain important
The SoR article also notes that international recruitment has played a meaningful role in supporting diagnostic staffing, while raising concern that future immigration changes could make this more difficult. This is an important point. The UK diagnostic workforce has long benefited from skilled international professionals — radiographers, sonographers and wider AHP and HSS staff who bring valuable experience into NHS and independent healthcare settings.
A one-size-fits-all workforce strategy will not be enough. CDCs in different regions will face different pressures depending on local vacancy levels, modality shortages and competition from neighbouring providers. The workforce solution for a newly expanded CDC in a rural setting will look very different from one supporting a high-volume urban imaging centre.
What good workforce planning looks like for CDCs
Providers planning CDC delivery will benefit from workforce models that combine permanent recruitment and locum flexibility, with strong governance and compliance built in from the outset. Modality-specific planning is essential: ultrasound, MRI and CT each carry different staffing risks and lead times. Where community diagnostic services are already in place, insourcing has proven to be one of the most effective ways to increase capacity quickly while maintaining clinical standards — without the disruption of a full structural change to the workforce.
The value of that approach is well documented. In a recent CDC sonography case study, Globe Workforce Solutions supported a Community Diagnostic Centre facing significant sonography capacity gaps, delivering a compliant, scalable insourcing model that enabled the service to meet patient demand without compromising on quality or governance. It’s a practical example of what workforce planning built into the delivery model looks like in practice.
How Globe Workforce Solutions works with diagnostic providers
Globe Workforce Solutions works with NHS trusts and independent providers to deliver scalable workforce solutions across diagnostics, allied health and health science services. With over 100,000 patients treated, a 98% patient satisfaction rate and approval across three NHS Workforce Alliance frameworks — Clinical and Healthcare Staffing, Insourced Services and International Recruitment — we have built our delivery model around consistent clinical standards and meaningful patient outcomes.
Our work spans the full diagnostic workforce: radiographers, sonographers, MRI and CT specialists, mammographers, audiologists, respiratory physiologists and wider AHP and HSS professionals. We support organisations with permanent and flexible staffing, insourcing and additional capacity projects, international recruitment pipelines and specialist hard-to-fill roles. Our HEALTHCHECK system provides real-time performance and compliance reporting across locum delivery, giving providers the visibility they need to manage workforce quality at scale.
As CDCs continue to expand, workforce planning will become one of the most important factors in whether the programme achieves what it promises. That is not a reason for concern — it is a reason to plan well, and early.
Capital investment creates capacity. Workforce delivery creates patient impact.
The £237 million CDC investment is a positive and necessary step. But the Society of Radiographers is right to ask the workforce question. New scanners need skilled professionals. New clinic rooms need specialist teams. New diagnostic pathways need flexible, compliant and experienced workforce partners.
If your organisation is planning CDC expansion, diagnostic recovery, weekend imaging capacity or specialist AHP and HSS workforce support, speak to Globe Workforce Solutions about building the workforce model behind it.
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