Construction has started on a £25 million new health hub project in Slough.

The Slough Community Diagnostics Centre (CDC) is being built at Upton Court Hospital and is expected to be completed by December 2025.

The new hub will provide medical scans and tests for patients in the area.

The NHS Frimley Health Foundation Trust, which is responsible for Wexham Park Hospital in Slough and Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot, will operate the centre once it is completed.

The construction work is being carried out by Western Building Systems Ltd and NHS Property Services.

It is expected to ease the pressure on Wexham Park Hospital and help reduce waiting lists in Slough, Windsor, and East Berkshire.

The centre will offer a range of services including MRI and CT scans, blood testing, and physiology tests.

At a ceremony to mark the start of construction, NHS Frimley Health Foundation Trust's chief executive officer Lance McCarthy said: "This is genuinely a transformational project to support the local residents – about 150,000 scans a year will go through this centre."

He added that the centre would help reduce waiting lists in the area.

He said: "Since the pandemic there’s been a big increase in patients waiting for all sorts of planned activity, both from surgery all the way down through diagnostics and outpatients.

"This massively increases the amount of capacity we have available to meet the needs of those patients and will ensure that we can continue to ensure patients can get quicker diagnostics.

"It will make a huge difference in terms of reducing waiting times."

NHS Frimley Health trust chief strategy officer James Clarke also spoke about the impact the centre will have for patients.

He said: "This is an exciting moment for the trust and the people of Slough.

"The £25 million Slough CDC will play a vital role in addressing health inequalities by ensuring that diagnostic services are accessible to everyone, regardless of where they live."

Slough MP Tan Dhesi said he was pleased healthcare investment was taking place in Slough to help alleviate ‘acute’ healthcare needs in the area.

"I want to congratulate Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust," he said.

"I also want to make sure I’m working collaboratively with them to ensure that the government is providing the funding and resources that’s needed because we have some very acute health needs here."

The project comes as an NHS Frimley Health trust board meeting last month heard how there were 85,000 people on waiting lists for care at its hospitals.