Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Integrated Care Board has opened an endoscopy unit at West Swindon Health Centre, which will provide an estimated 6,000 additional diagnostic appointments per year.
“The new endoscopy unit in Swindon, along with the other community diagnostic centres in our region, is helping to reduce… anxiety, as tests and investigations can now begin sooner than before, meaning serious conditions can be ruled out at a much earlier stage,” said Dr Barry Coakley, Deputy Chief Medical Officer at Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire ICB.
The Trust selected Vanguard Healthcare Solutions to build the new unit over nine months from January to October 2025.
Vanguard and the hospital team hoisted the modular endoscopy unit into place with giant cranes back in August.
The overall build is made possible by support from NHS Property Services.
For patients living in Swindon, the new endoscopy unit provides quicker access to diagnostic tests for serious conditions such as cancers and gastrointestinal diseases.
Operated day-to-day by clinical teams from Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, it complements West Swindon’s existing community diagnostic centre, which already offers CT and MRI services.
This addition is part of a roughly £14m regional CDC programme aimed at shifting more diagnostic services from large hospitals into community-based settings.
Other community diagnostic centres in the region have opened over the past couple of years, including in Bath and Salisbury.
Since April 2024, more than 60,000 patients have accessed diagnostics, such as CT, MRI, X-ray or endoscopy, at the region’s CDCs since the rollout began.
The unit is set to open later this year and will be able to care for up to 6,000 patients annually.
