First look at £20m mental health hospital
ANEW mental health hospital that cost about £20m to build will open in Southport next year.
The impressive facility is set to significantly improve the town’s inpatient and community mental health services with the two located together for the first time in a “modern therapeutic environment”.
Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust invited a select few to preview Hartley Hospital last Thursday, to coincide with World Mental Health Day.
Guests saw some of the 40 single en-suite bedrooms, day areas and garden courtyards, ahead of the first phase of completion.
There will also be therapy and activity areas, as well as a short-term assessment suite and an on-site cafe for patients, visitors and staff, and a family visiting room, sacred space, gym, suite of offices and outpatient services.
The new building will give a fresh lease of life to the historic hospital site on the corner of Curzon Road and the main A570 road into the town centre.
The first ward will move in mid-November to provide care for older adults, with the whole hospital expected to become fully operational in March 2020.
It will replace the existing Boothroyd Unit, as well as the nearby Hesketh Centre in Albert Road, which will close once the new facility is complete.
The chief operating officer at Mersey Care, Donna Robinson, said she was “delighted” to see Hartley Hospital approaching phase one completion, as this is the second major mental health hospital development to take place in Merseyside in the past four years.
The executive director of estates at Mersey Care, Elaine Darbyshire, said: “We are nearing the end of a long journey which has involved service users, carers, staff and partner organisations in designing a world class health facility fit for the 21st century.
“Thanks to support from our local commissioners and health partners we will soon see this first major phase of construction coming to an end.
“We can press on with the final fit out before moving in the first patients in November and ensuring the hospital is fully operational
2020.”
The hospital’s name was chosen after a community consultation.
It pays tribute to the heritage of the previous Southport General Infirmary site and nearby former Christiana Hartley maternity unit.
Christiana Hartley, the daughter of famous jammaking magnate Sir William Pickles Hartley who set up his factory in Liverpool, was Southport’s first woman mayor and a health and social reformer a century ago.
Once the new building is completed, staff and patients will move in from the old facility, which will then be demolished to make space for a car park. by March