Canon Medical Systems UK has announced a unique health and wellbeing collaboration which will see the UK’s first affordable carbon net-zero sports, healthcare, and community arena built in Sheffield.
Working with Sheffield City Council, Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park, BBraun Sheffield Sharks basketball franchise, Park Community Arena Ltd (PCA), and The LivingCare Group, The Park Community Arena is anticipated to open in 2023 as the UK’s first affordable carbon net-zero built sports, healthcare and community arena featuring an integrated medical diagnostic centre.
Based at the heart of the Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park, the new, sustainably-built arena will offer a flexible sporting facility featuring three full-size basketball courts and designed to hold 2,500 spectators.
Designed by local architects, Bond Bryan, it will be the new home for the Sheffield Sharks and the Sheffield Hatters (women) professional basketball teams and the arena will be available to wider sporting, education, and community organisations.
Working with local educational partners, it will establish a leading UK basketball academy and programme, serving the spectrum of elite to recreational basketball players.
The £3.5m development also offers huge potential for wider sporting, business, and community events and is set to play its role in boosting the region’s visitor economy collaborating with partners across Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park to support research, innovation, education, and community participation.
To the north end of the arena, Canon Medical will open a medical diagnostic centre to bring healthcare closer to people and boost access to health screening and disease prevention.
The medical diagnostic centre will play a part in expanding healthcare capacity for local people where they can attend minor surgery appointments or have diagnostic scans and other tests as part of a health prevention and early detection programme
This is in synergy with national health strategies to create ‘one-stop-shops’ for healthcare checks, scans, and tests outside the traditional hospital environment to overcome COVID-19 backlogs, improve earlier diagnosis, and contribute to NHS carbon net-zero ambitions by reducing patient journeys.
It will be managed by LivingCare and be available to the wider community in conjunction with South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Integrated Care System and local NHS providers.
The medical diagnostic centre will feature advanced Canon Medical imaging systems including AI-assisted CT and MRI, diagnostic ultrasound, digital X-ray, and will include consulting rooms, a minor surgery operating theatre, and an endoscopy suite.
Bringing all these modalities together will be Canon Medical’s healthcare information technology augmented with machine learning and AI to improve productivity and accuracy of diagnosis.
The centre will also provide the region’s first specialist sports diagnostic imaging centre that will translate elite-level health, injury, and rehabilitation learnings to routine clinical practice.
This will enable early detection, prevention, and faster rehabilitation for sports injury and illness, as well as provide pre-season medicals and sports injury services to professional, elite, semi-professional, and committed athletes.
Mark Hitchman, managing director of Canon Medical UK, said: “We are so excited to announce the Park Community Arena, a pioneering carbon net-zero built sports, healthcare, and community arena for the people of South Yorkshire.
“It will increase affordable access to sports and community events and provide a home for the BBraun Sheffield Sharks and Hatters basketball teams to play, train, and expand their valuable RESPECT and RESPECT TOO community outreach programmes for local young people.
“The medical diagnostic centre will play a part in expanding healthcare capacity for local people where they can attend minor surgery appointments or have diagnostic scans and other tests as part of a health prevention and early detection programme.
The Park Community Arena will provide a central and accessible location for general imaging referrals as well as offering the NHS and its patients additional capacity for scans and imaging procedures closer to home
“This close-to-the-community approach in a non-clinical environment will be better for people that may be anxious of hospitals or benefit from the excellent transportation links to the Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park.
“It will be an advanced healthcare facility featuring the latest Canon Medical innovations that are designed to deliver detailed diagnostic imaging to assist clinicians with confident and earlier diagnoses to improve the long-term health outcome for patients.
“It will also be a hub for our research and development teams working in co-operation with neighbouring academia to continue progress on developing healthcare innovations for the future.”
Luke Minshall, director of strategy and partnerships at LivingCare, added: “This is a great opportunity for the community of Sheffield.
“The Park Community Arena will provide a central and accessible location for general imaging referrals from professional sports clubs to health insurance companies as well as offering the NHS and its patients additional capacity for scans and imaging procedures closer to home.”
PCA obtained funding from Finance For Enterprise to support the planning application process, development of the plans, project management, and business planning.