The UK's biggest private Diagnostic and Outpatient Centre opens in London

The UK's largest private diagnostic and outpatient centre - the Platinum Medical Centre - opened today in North London.

Part of The Wellington Hospital in St John's Wood in North London, the £33 million Platinum Medical Centre, will serve 70,000 out patients every year. The building at 50,000 square feet spread over seven floors, increases the size of The Wellington Hospital - already the nation's largest private hospital, by almost a third.

The Platinum Medical Centre houses an extensive state of the art diagnostic and imaging centre with PET CT and two of the latest MRI scanners together with the full range of X-Ray, ultrasound and cardiology diagnostics. It will also have London's most modern chemotherapy centre with a special pharmacy, a conventional pharmacy and four operating theatres for day case surgery with 12 patient day beds.

The building, in Lodge Road, also has 50 consulting rooms and other extensive patient facilities.

The first patient to arrive at the new centre was Mr Simon Rosenfeld, from North London, who recently had an operation to remove a small lesion on his foot. "I am pleasantly surprised. It's very 21st century and state of the art. It could change the whole aspect of the Harley Street area from now on! All the consultants will be moving up here!" he said. "It is so convenient and very friendly. It's a real asset to The Wellington and the local community."

Mr Rosenfeld was seeing consultant orthopaedic surgeon, Mr Simon Moyes. "These premises are lovely. The Platinum Medical Centre has a nice warm feel about it. When you compare and contrast this with some other hospital facilities across London they are looking dated and this place is in a class of it's own," said Mr Moyes. "We have a specially designed orthopaedic floor here with a radiology reporting room nearby so everything has been well thought through."

The Chief Executive Officer of The Wellington Hospital, Mr Keith Hague, said that increasing demand from patients and the need to bring new areas of medicine to the hospital were the drivers behind the project.

"The Wellington has for many years had an international reputation for the complexity of the medicine practiced here but our patients rightly demanded an expansion of the services we offer," he said.

"For example, patients needing chemotherapy will be able to receive their treatment here and the development of our second large diagnostic and imaging unit will mean faster diagnosis and therefore treatment will begin earlier too," said Mr Hague.

Moving the outpatients department to The Platinum Medical Centre will also mean major new developments at The Wellington South building. "We will have a new urgent care admissions unit - 10 suites with critical care facilities," said Mr Hague. "We are developing a new lung cancer centre at Wellington South; a new breast cancer centre and that's just the beginning."

Notes to editors:

HCA International Limited owns the Capital's six leading private hospitals all based in central London and each with an international reputation for the highest standards of acute and tertiary care. They are: The Wellington - the largest private hospital in Europe, London Bridge Hospital, The Harley Street Clinic, The Portland Hospital for Women and Children, The Lister Hospital and The Princess Grace Hospital. HCA also has six outpatient and diagnostic centres a blood and bone cancer treatment joint venture with the NHS at University College Hospital together with a young person's cancer unit, The London Gamma Knife Centre, another joint venture with the NHS at St Bartholomew's Hospital and Harley Street at Queen's, a private patient cancer centre at the NHS Queen's Hospital in Romford.

In addition, HCA is developing, with the internationally renowned Christie cancer hospital in Manchester, a new state of the art private patient unit - to be called The Christie Clinic - for cancer patients from across the North of England. The six HCA hospitals in London treat around 300,000 patients per year. They also specialise in the most complex medical procedures including cardiac care, liver transplantation, inter cranial surgery and complex cancer care. The HCA cancer network, for example, is the largest provider of cancer care in the UK outside the NHS.

Uniquely, HCA has its own clinical trials unit based in Harley Street in central London. Medical teams in HCA are involved in research programmes aimed at finding new treatments in areas such as heart disease and cancer. In recent years HCA has invested over £300 million in capital expenditure including new diagnostic and treatment technology.

As an example, HCA installed at The Harley Street Clinic, the UK's first revolutionary CyberKnife robotic radiotherapy machine, which is able to target previously untreatable tumours. Deleted last sentence. For more Media Information, please call Neil Huband on 07808 298989 or 020 7436 6372.