Newly-built Nightingale hospitals will be converted into cancer testing centres, Health Secretary Matt Hancock confirms.

The first site to be converted at a former Homebase store in Exeter will be open 12 hours per day seven days per week and offer non-Covid CT scanning.

Seven Nightingale hospitals were set up across England at the beginning of the pandemic to create surge capacity for coronavirus patients.

The announcement follows comments by Sir Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, on Tuesday when he said diagnostic capacity would have to be expanded “in new ways” to deal with an increase in referrals.