Kings Heath Community Diagnostic Centre officially opens its doors! | Building a better KGH

Building a better KGH

We are embarking on an ambitious journey to transform our facilities and services at Kettering General Hospital, ensuring we meet the growing healthcare needs of Northamptonshire for generations to come.  The delays with the New Hospital Programme have meant we have paused some of our enabling works. While we await further details, we remain steadfast in our commitment to progress.

2025 is a big year for our hospital!

Work has started on our new Energy Centre which will be completed by 2027. Driving forward the transformation that our hospital needs along with moving ahead on our plans to address the RAAC concrete in our Women’s and Children's unit with an extension to Rockingham Wing, which will provide a  much better environment for our patients. It will be bright and spacious. This also gives us the opportunity to address the accommodation issues we have had following the discovery of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in 2024.

Community Diagnostic Centres (CDC's)  

Designed to increase the  capacity of diagnostic testing.  Providing community-based access to diagnostic services, leaving hospital site diagnostics additional capacity to manage emergency and non-elective inpatient workload.  

Each Community Diagnostic Centre will be a free standing multi-diagnostic facility, located away from main acute hospital facilities. There is a national target to deliver 44 Community Diagnostic Centre's across England; of which 8 of these will be across the Midlands.  

In Northamptonshire, we are currently working on two new Community Diagnostic Centre's  sites. One in Kings Heath, Northampton that opened to patients in the summer of 2024 and the second in Corby, which is due to open in 2025.

Find out more about the Community Diagnostic Centre's (CDC's)

Energy Centre 

Building has already started on  a state-of-the-art  green Energy Centre  which has been designed to support the hospital's existing infrastructure more efficiently and sustainably, while also accommodating future developments.

Find out more about the Energy Centre

Solar Panels

More than 1,000 rooftop solar PV (photovoltaic) panels will be fitted around the estate. These will be funded as part of a national £100 million package from the new publicly owned energy company Great British Energy. This will help to reduce yearly energy bills by around £150,000 and will add to the hospital’s overall energy sustainability. 

Find out more about the installation of Solar Panels.   

Rockingham Wing Extension

Over the past year we have been dealing with the consequences of discovering RAAC in the roof of Rockingham Wing.  We have had to relocate services from the building and delay plans to upgrade our Special Care Baby Unit and Bereavement Suite.

We have received funding to construct an extension to the building this will help address our accommodation issues.

Find out more about the Rockingham Wing Extension.

Artist impression main entrance approach April 2022

New Hospital Programme 

While we understand the New Hospitals Programme must be affordable, we are disappointed the governments decision on 20 January 2025 to delay the next steps in our development programme until 2029/2030. This delay poses a significant challenge to our plans and the delivery of much-needed improvements for the patients and communities we serve. 

Find out more about the New Hospital Programme

 

Proposed Multi-Storey Car Park

Plans include the development of a seven-storey, 662-space multi-storey car park to replace spaces lost for future redevelopment, ensuring easy and accessible parking for patients, visitors, and staff.    

Kings Heath Community Diagnostic Centre officially opens its doors!

Community Diagnostic Centre, located adjacent to the Kings Heath General Practice in Northampton

We are thrilled to announce that the new Community Diagnostic Centre, located adjacent to the Kings Heath General Practice in Northampton, has officially opened its doors!

This state-of-the-art facility is set to transform access to diagnostic services in the community, offering cutting-edge technology to aid in early detection of serious conditions like cancer and heart disease, enabling patients to receive life-saving treatments quickly.

Northamptonshire NHS patients can now be referred to Kings Heath for advanced imaging services such as MRI and CT scans, housed externally to the GP practice, as well as Echocardiograms and Ultrasound equipment conveniently located within the GP building. Run by the Northampton General Hospital and with the new MRI and CT unit run by Alliance Medical, this new hub aims to improve population health outcomes, boost diagnostic capacity, and enhance efficiency and productivity in diagnostics for NHS patients.

Polly Grimmett, Director of Strategy for University Hospitals of Northamptonshire says “the opening of the new building run by Alliance Medical completes this final part of the Kings Heath Community Diagnostic centre. This centre is much more convenient for patients who will be able to come to Kings Heath for diagnostic testing rather than visiting the main hospital. This increased access will help with earlier diagnosis of condition such as cancer and heart disease, and will help patients access the life-saving treatments they need earlier”

This facility marks an important milestone in delivering better healthcare services closer to home, ensuring a modern, welcoming, and highly functional environment for patients and staff alike. With these advancements, the Community Diagnostic Centre is poised to make a significant impact on health outcomes across Northamptonshire.

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