Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Diagnosis
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve early diagnosis of COPD.
Answered by Ashley Dalton
To enable faster diagnosis and earlier access to treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), access to spirometry tests in community diagnostic centres (CDCs) is growing and will continue to do so as more sites come online. The first five months of 2025/26 saw an increase in CDC spirometry testing of approximately 2,000 tests per month more than in the previous year.
As of November 2025, CDCs are now delivering additional tests and checks in 170 sites across the country. 101 CDCs across the country now offer out of hours services, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, meaning patients can access vital diagnostic tests around their busy working lives.
Diagnosis times for COPD from spirometry tests are not routinely collected or available in a centralised dataset.
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