Building work on the brand-new health and wellbeing centre in Bournville is officially underway with a ceremony to celebrate the construction work. We attended the event with representatives from Granton Medical Centre, BG Health, Bournville Village Trust, NHS Birmingham and Solihull Clinical Commissioning Group, and contractors AM Griffiths to celebrate the scheme reaching this key milestone.
BG Health – currently based at Griffiths Brook Surgery and Bunbury Road Surgery – and Granton Medical Centre will relocate to the new centre, which is being built on the former site of Bournville College in Bournville.
As well as modern consulting and treatment rooms to provide everyday family medicine, the practice will offer a far wider range of primary care options for their 16,000 patients than has been possible from the GPs’ current facilities. Working as part of a newly formed Primary Care Network, the practices merging will create a breadth of skills and resilience as well as being able to accommodate other healthcare professionals such as clinical pharmacists, social prescribers, physiotherapists, physician’s associates and community paramedics.
The new centre which is the fourth and final stage of the £50million College Green care village, is already home to over 300 people.
David Robinson, Director of Finance at Bournville Village Trust, said: “We take our role as a place-shaper seriously and are always seeking ways to work in partnership with others to ensure the communities we serve have the services and facilities they need to thrive.
“We have been proud to work closely with the NHS, which consulted with patients on the merger of the surgeries, to identify and bring about the best health and wellbeing centre possible and are now working with Assura who have impressed us with their excellent values and fantastic track record of delivering some of the UK’s best GP surgeries.”
Dr Gupte, from BG Health, said: “This is great news for our patients. It removes the uncertainties of substandard premises and ensures we can develop our services and workforce to provide excellent care in the future.”
Dr Western, from Granton Medical Centre, said: “This secures the future of general practice in the Bournville and adjoining areas. It will provide up-to-date access and facilities for all of the patients. Although sad to be leaving such an historic building, the new improved facilities and wider partnership should provide for our patients for decades to come.”
Philip Johns, Deputy Chief Executive Officer for NHS Birmingham and Solihull Clinical Commissioning Group, added: “Our ambition is to ensure the best possible outcomes for everyone in Birmingham and Solihull. This new health and wellbeing centre offers an exciting opportunity to improve the environment in which our patients can access healthcare; with modern consulting rooms, improved access and the potential to expand clinical services.”
Jonathan Murphy, our CEO said: “We are delighted to be investing in this flagship development and working with Bournville Village Trust to complete the final phase of the care village. The scheme is a great example of collaboration between many public and private sector parties who share a long-term vision. The new hub is designed to allow for future expansion, and we are looking forward to working with the doctors and NHS to support their ambitions for growth.”
Work first started on the College Green care village in 2012 when Bournville College relocated to Longbridge and the site was left vacant.
Bournville Village Trust created a masterplan for the site, which includes a 212- apartment retirement village, a care home for people with dementia, and 16 independent-living cottages.