Fears health hub may not be built after cash setback
THE doctor who helped spearhead Plymouth’s successful bid for a £60million health hub now fears it will never be built.
Dr Richard Ayres, clinical lead on the West End Health and Wellbeing Hub project, says he can’t see where it will find the £41m needed now central NHS funding is not available and added: “We are gutted.”
Dr Ayres, a GP at Stonehouse’s Adelaide Street Surgery and an associate professor at the University of Plymouth, said a vast amount of time and money had gone into the scheme, earmarked for Colin Campbell Court and chosen as one of only six Cavell Centres in the UK. But he fears it will now remain unbuilt without national NHS funding support which was expected to underpin it.
Plymouth City Council’s Tory leader Richard Bingley has said other sources of cash are being looked for and that the council is committed to its mission to “secure and deliver” a health hub in the West End.
Dr Ayres said: “We remain hopeful that it will happen, but I can’t see it from my perspective. I can’t see it happening. I can’t see anywhere we will get £41m from now, in this (economic) climate. As far as I can see the whole thing is axed.”
Plymouth Labour MP Luke Pollard last month revealed the planned West End Health and Wellbeing Hub was in jeopardy after it emerged £41m of NHS funding was not going to arrive. Demolition work has already begun in Colin Campbell Court and Mr Pollard said £5m has been spent on the project so far.
Dr Ayres said it came as a shock when health minister Robert Jenrick said the funding had never been committed.
“People couldn’t believe it,” Dr Ayres said. “The community is totally fed up and upset. We didn’t know the money was not there, I don’t think anyone did.”
It was planned for the building, envisaged as one of a number of Cavell Centre in-community health and wellbeing hubs, to house the North Road West Medical Centre, Adelaide Street Surgery and Armada Surgery. Dr Ayres said nine bids were made for Cavell Centres nationally but only six areas were chosen. He said Plymouth’s bid was outstanding and is baffled why a project that was selected did not then get a guaranteed funding package.
“It was a competitive process and we had to be good, but it became clear it was really good,” he said. “We have put hundreds of hours into this, it made me proud of the city, a fantastic initiative.”
He added: “We were never told that (the money was not there). We would not have put time into it if we thought it was speculative. That came as completely new to us. I couldn’t believe it. ”
He said that if the health hub is not built it will be a major lost opportunity for the city. It would also have housed outpatient services, mental health, community health and diagnostic services, alongside a pharmacy, community kitchen, cafe, mental health area, and bookable interview and voluntary sector rooms.
The project was also aimed at being the first segment in a regeneration of the Colin Campbell Court area, which could eventually see the refurbishment of the art deco Colin Campbell House and the demolition and replacement of some buildings fronting Western Approach and Market Avenue with blocks of flats, bringing an economic boost to the city’s West End.