Health on the high street: Doctor calls for new Sheffield city centre NHS facility
A Sheffield doctor and councillor has called for a new diagnostic health centre to be established in the city centre, inspired by the success of a project in Barnsley.
Coun Will Sapwell, who is an NHS cardiologist, made the call at Sheffield City Council’s monthly meeting. It was backed by councillors.
He proposed a LibDem motion that said a community diagnostic centre that opened in Barnsley’s Alhambra Centre in 2022 saw an increase of 22% in mammogram attendance and a 24% reduction in patient appointment no-shows.
The motion said the centre has driven an increase in footfall in the town centre of 50,000 people a year, resulting in a predicted £1.5m in additional spending.
It added: “High street locations for health services can offer a way to reach people who would otherwise struggle to get to hospital sites and capitalise on existing public transport networks.
“The council already does work supporting health in the community, such as neighbourhood hubs that support those with complex care needs.
Lucky
“Sheffield has the highest city centre vacancy rate of any large city centre.”
Setting up a ‘health on the high street’ centre would also reduce pressure at hospitals, the motion said.
It resolved to ask the Sheffield health and wellbeing board to start discussions with key city NHS trusts.
Coun Sapwell said: “As Lib Dems in Sheffield, we are lucky to count Michael Brown amongst our ranks, who in his day job as an architect, works on NHS projects such as those in Barnsley and Wakefield, which have brought secondary healthcare to the high street and I hope that my jobbing experience as a glorified plumber can add some colour to the debate.”
He said South Yorkshire NHS improvements such as the Barnsley centre were featured in a Panorama documentary in March 2025.
Easier
Coun Sapwell said: “Wakefield’s community diagnostic centre opened whilst I was working at Pinderfields Hospital. With it came a marked reduction in the wait time for the heart scans I was requesting for my patients.
“As our motion evidences, the Barnsley project has clearly made it easier for patients to access their scans which is not only good for them but is improving the efficiency of NHS services.
“Put simply, I want this in Sheffield too.”
Coun Sapwell explained that outpatient cardiac MRI waiting times are acceptable but it takes too long to get a scan for hospital inpatients.
“A scheme like this would free up our hospital MRI scanners to help treat our sickest patients, and shorten bed stays, thus compounding savings for the NHS. I cannot impress upon this chamber enough just how much sense this makes in terms of health economics alone”.
Despair
Seconder Coun Barbara Masters said that people ask why they should visit the city centre when they believe there’s nothing there for them. Many are put off by constant building work and shop closures.
Businesses wanting to recolate need to see busy city centres to tempt them to move.
“Instead of wringing their hands in despair and becoming a victim of changing times, Barnsley have moved on. More people are coming in to access healthcare in the centre and there’s more to keep them in the centre.”
Coun Laura McClean moved a Labour amendment, stressing the investment of the government’s 10-year health plan for cutting waiting lists by 86,000 and “shifting care towards community provision, early diagnosis and prevention”.
It also welcomed work by South Yorkshire’s Integrated Care Board, in partnership with the council, to develop a high street health centre on Church Street and £37m national capital funding “which has delivered the state-of-the-art Spital Street Health Centre in Burngreave, and the forthcoming GP centres in and around the city centre”.
The motion welcomed a successful pilot scheme, now extended, at Sheffield Walk-In Centre on Broad Lane in the city centre. This enables GP appointments to be booked when neighbourhood practices have no availability.
Turncoats
Coun McClean said: “Both the motion and our amendment underpinned by a shared belief that healthcare must be accessible to everyone. The people of Sheffield need an NHS they can rely on from cradle to grave.”
She said “Farage’s Tory turncoats” would replace the NHS with a US-style insurance-based healthcare system.
Seconder Coun Mary Lea said: “Barnsley is an excellent model for us to look at to see how could deliver this in Sheffield.”
Green group leader Coun Angela Argenzio proposed her party’s amendment. It stated: “More diagnostics does not necessarily mean better outcomes and what happens after diagnosis is paramount to improving healthcare for Sheffield.”
An NHS restructure means that 400 jobs are going in the South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, said Coun Argenzio, affecting Sheffield-based services. This adds to the pressure on the NHS.
Prevention
She said: “While the diagnostics is really important, what happens before and after is paramount to creating health.
“What is even more important than diagnostics is prevention – it needs to happen upstream and it needs to happen in our communities.”
She added: “The initiative in Barnsley is fantastic but it’s also very important to remember that having those higher numbers doesn’t necessarily mean there is more health – there is more healthcare but there isn’t neccesarily more health, so the data needs to be looked at.”
Seconder Toby Mallinson said that more testing should form part of an overall plan. He said that NHS professionals need to be consulted because developing the idea could have the unintended consequences of increasing pressure elsewhere.
Coun Sapwell said in his right of reply: “Projects like Church Street are excellent and in keeping with a motion I have previously proposed and we passed.
Research
“But this project is not about primary care. Instead, this project is about bringing secondary care into a space more convenient for patients, whilst alleviating pressure on our hospitals.”
He told Green councillors that he has a research interest in prevention.
“Yes diagnostics aren’t the whole picture, but let me tell you, as someone relatively well versed in this, it’s bloody hard to optimise someone’s secondary prevention if they’ve never had an echocardiogram.”
Labour’s amendment was carried in a vote while the Green amendment fell. The amended motion was approved unanimously.