Top health campus ready within two years (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Top health campus ready within two years

A NEW £20million health and social care campus to meet the Malmesbury area's needs in the 21st century could be ready for opening within two years.

The two consortia competing for the contract to redevelop the 100-year-old hospital at Burton Hill outlined their plans to a packed town hall audience on Tuesday.

The successful bidder will be announced later this spring and construction work on the project could begin in the autumn.

The two organisations behind the bids are the London-based British Health Enterprises and the non-profit-making care homes provider the Order of St John Care Trust.

Each shortlisted consortia plan a new complex on the 1.25 acre site comprising:

<sum> Primary care centre providing expanded GP facilities, to replace Gable House Surgery in the High Street, plus some outpatient services

<sum> Care home providing up to 80 single room accommodation, some of which will be designated for NHS patients

<sum> Between 22 and 28 "extra care" flats - designed for elderly or disabled people who need support for independent living

The redevelopment will be partially funded by the sale and redevelopment of Gable House Surgery.

The presentations given on Tuesday to an invited 100-strong audience representing local health professionals, user groups and other interested parties followed two and a half years of planning, collaboration and debate.

Members of the audience were asked to fill in a questionnaire to give marks out of 10 for each presentation on a range of criteria.

Former Mayor of Malmesbury Cllr John Bowen, chairman of Kennet and North Wiltshire NHS Primary Care Trust's hospital project board, told the meeting: "We have got to get provision right for the community for the next 30 years. If this works well, it could be the blueprint for all the cottage hospital replacements in the south of England."

But he added: "It's not going to be an easy 18 months - there's going to be pain before the gain."

Dr David Charles, a Malmesbury GP for 22 years who has been closely involved in the plans said Gable House Surgery was "bursting at the seams", having outgrown the premises.

"We need a flexible design that will enable us to provide holistic services for the 21st century," he added.

The meeting was also told the plans had to allow for a 20percent expansion depending on future needs.

Order of St. John Care Trust (OSJCT)

The OSJ is the second largest not-for profit care home provider in the UK, with 19 homes in Wiltshire including the 50-bed Burnham House in Malmesbury.

Its other care homes are spread across Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Lincolnshire. If awarded the contract it would relocate the existing Burnham House to Burton Hill, providing a total of 40 residential care and 40 nursing care beds.

"We provide lots of activities for our residents and trips out, and our scheme envisages benefits for the whole community," Diane Bowden of the OSJ told the town hall meeting. Human resources director Richard Durance said the OSJ was an innovative employer with a good track record for training and retaining staff. There would be 28 two bedroom flats under the OSJ scheme.

Bid 1: British Health Enterprises (BHE)

A community courtyard with shops, and potentially a caf, features in the BHE scheme for a 70-bed residential care and nursing home, with 22 "extra care" apartments, for sale or rent, to go up alongside the new primary care centre. A curved covered walkway would link a barn-style primary care centre with the care home.

"We expect this to be the flagship health campus for the West," said architect Sue Maggia. "We will also deliver care in the community as you've never seen it before."

BHE has built 120 primary care schemes across the UK, and its partners Four Seasons own and operate more than 200 care homes - three of them in Wiltshire. There would be day care provision for elderly people, and possibly a nursery too.