Work gets underway on Hull’s latest health centre

The £10m Hessle Road Health & Wellbeing Centre will go up on the site of the former Heron frozen food factory on Walcott Street.

Due for completion in Spring 2013, it will provide a new base for St Andrew’s Practice, Dr Blow’s Practice and Sydenham House Practice, which will relocate there.

Hull MP Alan Johnson defended the multi-million pound investment in new centres - just under £60m to date - saying they were needed to help reverse the so-called “inverse care law” that people who needed the most healthcare actually got the least.

He added: “If you are a man born in Hull, you die seven years earlier than someone in Beverley...part of that is access to healthcare. It has to be done for health reasons, secondly the health care budget is protected so the Government tells us, thirdly it was costed at the time and fourthly it’s a really important part of the regeneration of Hessle Road.”

NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson, who recently attended a groundbreaking ceremony, said the new centre would provide “local people with the high quality and easily accessible services we want all of our patients to have on their doorsteps”.

The taxpayer will pick up rent payments over the next 25 years on the buildings, which have been financed by Citycare, made up of the Sewell Group, UME Group, NHS Hull and Community Health Partnerships.

The designs can be seen between 5.30pm and 7.30pm next Monday at the Boulevard Corner Café Bar.