Polly has attended the official launch of the new Thanet Community Health Hub. The Hub, which opened its doors last year, provides a range of NHS and community services under one roof, helping to alleviate pressure on local hospitals and GP surgeries and ensuring patients can be seen faster.
The multi-million-pound hub is led by the East Kent Health and Care Partnership. Services already available include a respiratory sleep clinic, cardiology, phlebotomy, lung function diagnostics, and a GP surgery. An MRI scanner will be installed in 2026, helping more people get faster access to important tests. As well as the diagnostic centre, the new hub will also include a range of community services, such as community nursing, podiatry, cardiac and respiratory services.
Polly said:
“It was brilliant to be at the official launch of the Thanet Community Health Hub today, a really good example of how the NHS is getting better. I was just looking at the lung capacity unit where clinicians test out your lung capacity, to check out if you’ve got conditions like asthma or COPD. People were waiting two to three years for that treatment, but now they’re waiting a maximum of seven weeks. That’s the impact of the investment the government are making, so we can get waiting lists down and get people seen more quickly.
“So when people say, “What difference are we seeing in the NHS?”, here, in Thanet, we’ve got a material example of what a difference this is making to people.”