NHS unveils £14m health centre plan
A vision for a £14 million centre set to transform health care in Stoke-on-Trent has been unveiled.
Plans for the primary care centre at Cobridge were unveiled to patients last night as part of a consultation which continues tonight.
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It is hoped the three-storey centre – planned for cleared land opposite The Yorkshire chip shop in Elder Road – will be open in two years, subject to planning permission.
The centre will cater for 100,000 patients and be home to three existing GP practices currently in crumbling and cramped accommodation. It will also be one of five so-called mini hospitals in the city designed to take services away from the University Hospital of North Staffordshire.
Thousands of outpatient appointments with specialists will switch to the unit and offer care including diagnosing illnesses, physiotherapy, a chest clinic, speech, language and occupational therapy and a sexual health clinic.
It will also become the base for the city's asylum seeker health team, health visitors and school and district nurses. The development is the latest transformation of health centres, with new premises already opened in Shelton, Fenton and Packmoor and a £30 million scheme at Haywood Hospital, Burslem, to be completed by the Autumn. Other schemes are also taking shape in Meir, Hanley and Middleport.
Dr Uday Pathak, whose Waterloo Road surgery is due to move to the new Cobridge centre, said: "We are delighted with what is being planned.
"We believe the proposed centre and the state-of-the-art facilities will provide an enhanced experience for our patients, while also helping us to increase our efficiency."
The Parikh surgery, in Sneyd Street, and the Marathe practice, in Apsley House, Waterloo Road, will also move. NHS Stoke-on-Trent decided on Cobridge after turning down an alternative site in Festival Park.
Trust chief executive Graham Urwin said: "When we consulted about our initial proposals in 2007, the local community and key stakeholders told us what they would like to see in the centre and we have responded."
Patient Bernard Wragg, of Elm Street, said: "This will be great for Cobridge and something we've been fighting for over many years. It looks like the days of Cobridge being promised so much but having so little delivered are over."
The plans will go on show today at Sneyd Green Primary School from 5pm-8.30pm.
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