OUR BLOGDiagnostics are central to the NHS 10-Year Plan, enabling early intervention, reducing variation, and supporting integrated care. MIP delivers scalable, community-based diagnostic services aligned with national strategy and ICS needs.
The NHS’s 10-Year Health Plan is not a standalone strategy-it is the logical continuation of multiple policy trajectories that have been in development for more than a decade: the move toward integration; the devolution of accountability to local systems; the increased role of digital tools in clinical decision-making; and the shift from reactive treatment toward proactive, preventative care. But where this latest plan stands apart is in its explicit framing of diagnostics-not as support infrastructure, but as a core mechanism for achieving almost every one of these aims.
Diagnostics are now recognised as foundational to effective population health management. Without timely, accurate, and accessible diagnostics, systems cannot deliver against early intervention goals, cannot balance secondary and community care, and cannot meaningfully address unwarranted variation in clinical outcomes. In short, no transformation of care is possible without transformation in diagnostics.
Medical Imaging Partnership (MIP) operates with this reality as its baseline. Our infrastructure, reporting models, governance systems and workforce design are structured around delivering diagnostics in ways that are flexible, scalable, and aligned with both regional variation and national standards. That alignment is not incidental-it is deliberate. Because the capacity to respond to population need is now a matter of structure, not just service.
Delivering against the ambitions of the 10-Year Plan requires providers to embed themselves into health systems, not simply orbit them. That means understanding Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) as unique health economies, with distinct demographic profiles, historical capacity issues, estate constraints, and digital maturity levels. The response to diagnostic backlog in an urban system with tertiary referral networks, for instance, will differ fundamentally from the requirements of a semi-rural ICS managing dispersed population clusters and transport inequities.
MIP’s approach is designed to accommodate that variation. Our service design process begins with demand mapping, including the analysis of referral trends, reporting turnaround times, pathway gaps, and GP access points.
This allows us to work with system partners to prioritise not just capacity, but utility. There is no benefit in increased throughput if the results do not reach the right clinician at the right time, or if reporting is not clinically actionable. Diagnostic activity must be meaningful, not just measurable.
To achieve this, we embed diagnostics into pathways in three key ways. First, through digitally enabled interoperability that connects imaging acquisition to NHS reporting systems and local EPRs, minimising friction and ensuring continuity of information. Second, through triage-led direct-to-test models, which enable primary care clinicians to request imaging that is clinically governed, prioritised, and structured to reduce unnecessary referrals. Third, through community-based delivery-whether via mobile, modular, or fixed-site services-that positions diagnostics where patients live and work, not where hospital schedules allow.
The rationale behind these models is clear. According to national data, one in four outpatient appointments is now considered avoidable-with diagnostics forming a major component of that avoid-ability. In musculoskeletal care alone, integrated community imaging can reduce the number of first consultant appointments by over 40% when reporting includes referral guidance and management recommendations.
Equally important is the impact on population reach. Data shows that areas with high deprivation or poor transport access routinely show lower diagnostic attendance, even when symptoms are present. By deploying diagnostics into these communities-via mobile infrastructure or co-located primary care services-uptake and earlier diagnosis increases, particularly in cancer and cardiometabolic conditions. [Insert data]
This is especially relevant when examined against the demographic pressures facing the NHS over the next decade. By 2035, it is projected that one in five people in England will be over 65. Multimorbidity is already the norm for patients over 70, with over 60% having two or more long-term conditions. The need for diagnostics is not just increasing in volume-it is changing in nature, requiring longitudinal imaging for chronic disease monitoring, earlier-stage detection for ageing-related pathologies, and faster turnaround to prevent avoidable admissions.
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