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Park Community Arena Announced at Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park
The UK’s rst sustainable, carbon net-zero built community arena with multi-purpose sports facilities & integrated diagnostic centre announced at She eld Olympic Legacy Park. The Park Community Arena will be developed by Canon Medical Systems UK.
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UK’s rst sustainable, carbon net-zero built community arena with multi-purpose sports facilities & integrated Medical Diagnostic Centre to improve health and wellbeing in South Yorkshire
Canon Medical Systems UK has announced a unique health and wellbeing collaboration with She eld City Council, She eld Olympic Legacy Park, BBraun She eld Sharks basketball franchise, PCA Ltd and The LivingCare Group. The new ‘Park Community Arena’ is anticipated to open in 2023 as the UK’s rst a ordable carbon net-zero built sports, healthcare and community arena featuring an integrated Medical Diagnostic Centre.
Based at the heart of the She eld Olympic Legacy Park, the new, sustainably built arena will o er a exible sporting facility, featuring three full-size basketball courts, and designed to hold 2500 spectators. It will be the new home for the She eld Sharks and the She eld Hatters (women) professional basketball teams and the arena will be available to wider sporting, education, and community organisations. Working with local educational partners, it will establish a leading UK basketball academy and programme, serving the spectrum of elite to recreational basketball players. The exible arena also o ers huge potential for wider sporting, business, and community events and is set to play its role in boosting the region’s visitor economy collaborating with partners across She eld Olympic Legacy Park to support research, innovation, education, and community participation.
Councillor Mazher Iqbal, Executive Member for City Futures: Development, Culture and Regeneration at She eld City Council
To the north end of the arena, Canon Medical will open a Medical Diagnostic Centre to bring healthcare closer to people and boost access to health screening and disease prevention. This is in synergy with national health strategies1 to create ‘one-stop-shops’ for healthcare checks, scans and tests outside the traditional hospital environment to overcome Covid-19 pandemic backlogs, improve earlier diagnosis and contribute to NHS carbon net-zero ambitions by reducing patient journeys. It will be managed by LivingCare and be available to the wider community in conjunction with South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Integrated Care System and local NHS providers. The Medical Diagnostic Centre will feature advanced Canon Medical imaging systems including AI-assisted CT and MRI, diagnostic ultrasound, digital X-ray and include consulting rooms, a minor surgery operating theatre and an Endoscopy suite. Bringing all these modalities together will be Canon Medical’s healthcare information technology augmented with machine learning and AI to improve productivity and accuracy of diagnosis.
The Medical Diagnostic Centre will provide the region’s rst specialist Sports Diagnostic Imaging Centre that will translate elite-level health, injury, and rehabilitation learnings to routine clinical practice. This will enable early detection, prevention and faster rehabilitation for sports injury and illness, as well as provide pre-season medicals and sports injury services to professional, elite, semi-professional and committed athletes.
Mark Hitchman, Managing Director of Canon Medical UK states, “We are so excited to announce the Park Community Arena, a pioneering carbon net-zero built sports, healthcare and community arena for the people of South Yorkshire. It will increase a ordable access to sports and community events and provide a home for the BBraun She eld Sharks and Hatters basketball teams to play, train and expand their valuable RESPECT and RESPECT TOO community outreach programmes for local young people.”
“The Medical Diagnostic Centre at the Park Community Arena will play a part in expanding healthcare capacity for local people where they can attend minor surgery appointments or have diagnostic scans and other tests as part of a health prevention and early detection programme. This close-to-the-community approach in a non-clinical environment will be better for people that may be anxious of hospitals or bene t from the excellent transportation links to the She eld Olympic Legacy Park,” Mark Hitchman continues. “It will be an advanced healthcare facility featuring the latest Canon Medical innovations that are designed to deliver detailed diagnostic imaging to assist clinicians with con dent and earlier diagnoses to improve the long-term health outcome for patients. It will also be a hub for our research and development teams working in cooperation with neighbouring academia to continue progress on developing healthcare innovations for the future.”
Luke Minshall, Director of Strategy & Partnerships at LivingCare, states, “This is a great opportunity for the community of She eld to have its healthcare provision expanded and we are delighted to be involved. The Park Community Arena will provide a central and accessible location for general imaging referrals from professional sports clubs to health insurance companies, as well as o ering the NHS and its patients additional capacity for scans and imaging procedures closer to home.”
Mark Hitchman, Managing Director Canon Medical UK
Yuri Matischen, Chairman of PCA Ltd and the Sharks, states, “She eld Olympic Legacy Park is already synonymous with encouraging physical wellbeing, is home to 2000 pupils and students and has great transport links making it the ideal location for the community arena. It will provide the new permanent home for the Sharks and Hatters allowing basketball to transform and ourish, and be an accessible and inspirational home for other sports clubs from the area’s diverse communities. We are truly excited to be working with Canon Medical, LivingCare and all partners on She eld Olympic Legacy Park to extend the City’s sporting reputation and inspire young people to be physically active.”
Councillor Mazher Iqbal, Co-Chair of the Transport, Regeneration and Climate Policy Committee at She eld City Council adds, “We are proud to be working with our partners at She eld Olympic Legacy Park to create these exciting new facilities, which will provide world-class healthcare for local people and strengthen our communities. As well as providing a brand-new home for the She eld Sharks and creating another exible events space for the city, these additions to She eld Olympic Legacy Park will boost the local economy – increasing footfall and bringing new opportunities to the surrounding areas. People of all ages will bene t from having a range of cutting-edge facilities right on their doorstep, as She eld leads the way in sustainable innovation and medical research.”
Richard Caborn, Chair of the She eld Olympic Legacy Park, states, “Canon Medical has been a valued partner in the development of She eld Olympic Legacy Park since day one. Its community ethos and engagement initiatives resonate with our Olympic legacy aims. The new Park Community Arena will further extend the health and wellbeing collaboration possibilities with our two She eld Teaching Hospitals, our university partners and elite sports facilities to create a ourishing international centre for diagnostic imaging located in the North of England.”//
References 1 Diagnostics: Recovery and Renewal – Report of the Independent Review of Diagnostic Services for
NHS England, November 2020, Sir Mike Richards.
Left to Right: Zahira Naz, Co-Chair Finance Sub-Committee, She eld City Council, Mazher Iqbal, Co-Chair of the Transport, Regeneration and Climate Policy Committee at She eld City Council, Chris Low, Chief Executive, Olympic Legacy Park, Mark Hitchman, Managing Director, Canon Medical Systems UK, Armit Sidhu, CFO, Living Care, Richard Caborn, Chairman, She eld Olympic Legacy Park, Yuri Matischen, Director, PCA Limited & Chairman of the Sharks, Steve Feldman, Director, Living Care, Ian Watson, Director of Commercial Solutions, Canon Medical Systems UK, Helen White, Managing Director, Living Care, Sarah Williams, Director of Patient Safety and Clinical E ectiveness, Living Care, Sarah Backovic, Managing Director, PCA Limited, Luke Minshall, Director of Strategy and Partnerships, Living Care, Armit Sidhu, Finance Director, Living Care, Maiko Davison, Operations and Marketing Director, Canon Medical Systems UK
