New Health and Care Centre Coming to White City

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Bloemfontein Road facility could serve 25,000 patients

White City is to get a brand new health and care centre.

The £15 million state of the art facility, being delivered by Building Better Health and Hammersmith and Fulham PCT will be able to provide a wide range of health and social care services, and have GP capacity to register 10,000 patients initially, growing to 25,000 patients if needed.

Plans for the White City Collaborative Care Centre, in Bloemfontein Road, were first drawn up in 2007 and planning permission applied for in 2008.

NHS London and the Department of Health have now approved the plans and this means construction work will commence by the summer 2012, with the centre opening to patients in January 2014.

Dr Tim Spicer, Chair of Hammersmith & Fulham Clinical Commissioning Group, says: "This is exciting news as the new health centre is central to our plans to develop an integrated health and social care service for the residents of White City.

"We will be developing a full GP service with better larger treatment rooms and there is also space for other services such dentistry, minor surgery and podietry amongst others.

“It will also give us the space we need to develop an integrated centre for disabled children with radically improved access, co-ordination of services, assessments and treatment, and have a space which parents and their families’ will feel welcoming."

Other services to be provided by the new centre include community nursing and health visiting, social work services, services for children with disabilities, speech therapy, mental health services, and physiotherapy.

170 flats will also be built together with a mini-supermarket, pharmacy, and a £1m investment in Wormholt Park.

The centre is particularly needed because people who live in the north of the borough live on average eight years less than those in the south. A recent report by the Department of Health on the state of health of residents in White City and Shepherds Bush reveals that nearly a quarter of all year 6 school children are obese, stroke deaths are higher than normal and drug misuse is worse than in many other London boroughs.

March 9, 2012