This is how we completed an ambitious project to merge two GP practices that needed better quality facilities whilst still being able to provide additional space for more community services.
Both Park Road Medical Practice and Portugal Place Health Centre badly needed a new building to call home and had unsuccessfully looked at options for five years prior to appointing us to build their new health centre.
The former premises for each practice were ageing, lacking adequate space and did not meet the needs of patients with disabilities, with challenges around both access and parking for patients visiting the surgeries.
With the completion of this medical centre the practices have now merged to form Hadrian Health Centre and the move into the new building has helped the long-term sustainability of the GP practices enabling them to offer high quality and modern health services for their patients.
The medical centre provides primary care services from the entirety of the ground floor, with space on the first floor for admin and staff meeting space.
The remainder of the first floor and the entirety of the second floor of the building are occupied by the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. Providing community services from the building including diabetes, district nursing, podiatry, physiotherapy, speech and language therapy and North Tyneside Talking Therapies.
Sustainability is always a priority for us and our stakeholders and here we’ve designed the building to a high specification including BREEAM Excellent standard aiming to reduce running costs for our tenants as well as lessening the carbon footprint of the building. In order to reduce costs the building uses PV panels on the roof and an Air Source Heat Pump.
We've now got first class facilities which is a vast improvement for our patients as our previous premises were ageing and lacked adequate space, making it difficult for our patients to access. Having a range of services all in one building makes it easier for our patients to get the treatments they may need too, and it's such a welcoming environment."
Dr Joo Li Ng, GP from Hadrian Health Centre
Hadrian Health Centre also achieved a key goal for both practices which was to allow for better space utilisation and provide the potential to accommodate more GP and other healthcare professional training.
The building was delivered by ESH Construction and during the journey they made sure there were opportunities for children in the community to get involved.
Children from Western Community Primary School joined invited guests to help officially open the building on Tuesday, March 21.
The schoolchildren also took part in a pebble painting workshop delivered by Esh’s Social Value Manager in which wellness champions at the school helped create a raft of brightly painted pebble stones inspired by the theme ‘wellness’ which were then placed in the health centres courtyard garden.
With accessibility, sustainability and a holistic approach to providing Primary Care, Wallsend now has a state-of-the-art medical facility that is fit for the future.
As part of the development and our commitment to long term social impact, we also provided funding to Wallsend Boys Club to deliver a range of community activities within their newly built d community hub. They will create a more diverse offer, beyond football, that will promote wellbeing for the whole community including young people who wouldn’t otherwise engage.
“We're proud to see this building open, it's now giving local people the primary and community care services they need all in one modern health centre. This development could not have been delivered without the hard work and dedication of all parties involved, everyone should be very proud."
Andrew Cooper, our Development Director