Funding secured to build Healthcare Village in Burton
Plans to create a Healthcare Village on surplus land at Queen’s Hospital Burton have been boosted with a Government grant.
The development on the Outwoods site has been allocated £21.88 million of capital funding from the Department of Health and Social care.
A nursery, GP surgery and residential accommodation are all set to be built as part of the Healthcare Village plans, whilst the work will also make use of existing buildings, including the Medical Education Centre and newly-built dementia centre.
Duncan Bedford, Managing Director for the Burton site, said: “This is excellent news for our patients and local population. The Healthcare Village is an adventurous proposal, using an innovative approach to provide care in the community. It will be so much more than a set of buildings; we aim to nurture a community that brings together people of all ages, addressing some of the current issues that society faces, such as social isolation.”
As demand on the NHS continues to grow, trusts are being encouraged to explore new ways of supporting patients.
The Healthcare Village will focus on preventative care and managing long-term conditions to prevent unnecessary admissions to hospital.
There will be a Community Hub on site, which will become the heart of the development and will provide a space for residents, patients and visitors to interact and support each other.
Gavin Boyle, Chief Executive at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton, said: “The Healthcare Village will operate as an integrated care facility, bringing health and social services together to provide the people of Burton and surrounding areas with the best care. We are very pleased that funding has been allocated to our proposals and look forward to working with the Staffordshire STP and our partners to deliver this new model of care.”
Andrew Griffiths, MP for Burton and Uttoxeter, said: “This was a well put together proposal and following lots of hard lobbying, has delivered funding for a scheme that will dramatically improve the health of local people. I would like to thank the Health Secretary Matt Hancock for listening to our arguments and backing a plan which I think will set the future direction for similar schemes across the country. Well done to everyone involved at the hospital on this brilliant result.”
Simon Whitehouse, Director of Staffordshire STP ‘Together We’re Better Together’, said: “The announcement of this funding is very welcome in our area and will enable us to transform the way that care is delivered to local people. The Health and Care Campus at Outwoods will realise a key priority for Together We’re Better; utilising NHS estate to its fullest potential, whilst integrating health and care services to benefit the population we serve. This is an approach that we want to see developed across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent. There is a responsibility on all of us to ensure that we are being innovative about how we use and develop estates (land and buildings) that are owned by public sector partners. Being able to attract this level of external capital funding is a great credit to the hard work of the team that have developed and worked up these proposals.”
The developments are being led by STRIDE, a joint venture between University Hospitals of Derby and Burton (UHDB) and Health Innovation Partners.
The STRIDE joint venture delivers priority Strategic Estates Services over the short and medium term, with the aim of achieving maximum efficiency in the way the Trust operates and in how it uses its sizeable physical estate, in line with the Trust’s clinical priorities for patient care, and reflecting its strategic plan for the future.