View from 1st Floor ward into Therapy Garden and Multi-Faith Space

Artwork in the central cafe combines colours used in each of the hospital wards, creating exciting and easy wayfinding around the building.

Buschow Henley’s St John’s Therapy Centre, Clapham procured through NHS LIFT

Source: BD 16 Feb 2007

[Image taken from Building Design Issue 1753]

The NHS last week opened the hundredth new health centre built under the Government’s NHS Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) programme, a scheme aimed at improving community health services in some of the country’s poorest and most deprived areas.

Three new NHS LIFT health centres are opening inside the week, with the 100th building now open in St Helens (Longview Drive Centre) and further centres opening in East London (Frail Elders’ Centre) and in Thorne, Doncaster (The Vermuyden Centre). Over 70 further NHS LIFT health centres and GP surgeries are already under construction, while dozens more are being planned.

The £3 million Longview Drive Primary Care Centre houses a GP practice with an enhanced minor surgery suite. Patients can also access a wide range of services under the one roof, including health visitors, midwives and cardiac nurses.

Health Minister Lord Warner said:

“NHS LIFT is helping us deliver our vision of an NHS that treats more patients outside of large hospitals. The opening of the 100th new surgery shows that this vision is starting to become a reality.

“The NHS has never witnessed such a sustained investment in GP surgeries and health centres. Around £1 billion has already been earmarked for new buildings through NHS LIFT.

“These are purpose built facilities, where GP services are often on the same site as pharmacies and social services, and are not simple like-for-like replacements.

“The centres are more convenient for patients, particularly older patients and those with long-term conditions, as they offer more care closer to home.

“These modern, spacious and hygienic buildings also help improve the morale of staff working there and, help to attract more GPs into inner-city areas.”

Rather than simply replacing outdated facilities, NHS LIFT premises offer many services traditionally only found in hospitals. As well as GP surgeries, the buildings have delivered ’super surgeries’ where NHS patients can get minor surgery for hernia repairs, sports injuries and even vasectomies.

X-rays, medical tests, speech and language therapy, chiropody, physiotherapy and dentistry, are also now available in some of the new centres.

The NHS is continuing to make progress on the latest wave of NHS LIFT schemes. Seven wave four projects are proceeding towards appointment of their Private Sector Partner (PSP), their preferred bidder, and three of these are already at this stage.

The NHS LIFT programme is just part of the department’s major programme to modernise GP premises. Over 500 new one-stop health centres have been built since 2001, including those built under NHS LIFT. This will rise to 625 by the end of 2006 and hit 750 by the end of 2008.

In addition, during the last five years over 3,000 GP surgeries - almost one third of all surgeries - have recently been substantially refurbished or replaced.

The new community hospitals initiative, in which the Department will invest £750 million over the next five years, will complement this programme, providing many similar services, but on a bigger scale.

Notes:

1. Details on the three new NHS LIFT schemes are as follows:

Longview Drive Primary Care Centre (Halton & Knowsley PCT) - £3 million

• Health centre housing one GP practice (2-3 GPs) with an enhanced minor surgery suite, health visitors, midwives, cardiac nurses and a school nurse.
• Pharmacist and pharmacy technician attend the practice on a regular basis.
• Study areas for medical students and PCT staff
• Undergraduate Medical Students - the new development will allow it to apply for training practice status.
• Opened to patients on 6 November 2006.

East Ham Memorial Hospital - Frail Elders Centre (Newham PCT) - £14.6 million

• £14.6 million project that transfers services from the Sally Sherman nursing home and Plaistow hospital.
• Re-provision of services includes continuing care for the elderly, day hospital, elders resource centre, rehabilitation.
• Opened to patients on 7 November 2006.

The Vermuyden Centre, Thorne (Doncaster PCT) - £5.1 million

• £5.1 million centre built on a five-acre site.
• Contains 2 GP practices with 8 GPs.
• Also library, social services, housing advice, community dentistry, out-patient suite and some diagnostics including endoscopy.
• Open to patients 13 November 2006.

2. Developed in the late 1990s, NHS LIFT is the most extensive initiative in recent years to modernise the primary care estate.

3. In all, there are 49 NHS LIFT projects at various stages of development.

4. The 42 projects that have reached financial close have commissioned facilities with a total capital value of £951 million.

5. The Government has allocated £208m in Enabling Funds up to the end of 2005-06, to help kick start these developments.

6. One of the most effective aspects of NHS LIFT is that, while the department sets out the ground rules and provides the standard legal and other documentation, it leaves the actual planning of local facilities to those best able to plan them, namely, the people on the ground. The approach involves the local health economy - a PCT or a cluster of PCTs - developing a strategic plan that incorporates its local primary care service needs and relationships with, for example, the wider health economy and local authority services.

7. Based on the strategic plan, the NHS runs a competitive process to select a private sector partner for the next 20 years. The NHS and private sector then set up a joint venture company to manage the NHS LIFT project. They all own a share of the company and jointly have an interest in its long-term success.

8. NHS LIFT projects are all capable of delivering a number of new facilities and will provide new primary care facilities for some 50 per cent of the population.

9. The position of the wave four NHS LIFT schemes are as follows:

• Bolton, Rochdale and Heywood & Middleton (BRAHM): Eric Wright Group Ltd appointed preferred bidder
• Bury, Tameside and Glossop: Community Solutions for Primary Care appointed preferred bidder
• South East Essex: gbPrimaryCare appointed preferred bidder
• South Midlands: Currently has short-list of three bidders
• South East Midlands: Currently has short-list of three bidders
• South West Hants: Currently has short-list of three bidders
• Swindon and Wiltshire: OJEU stage completed and now working towards issue of Invitation To