A local mental health trust has submitted funding bids totalling £220m to the Government to build two world class mental health super centres.
Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust provides mental health and learning disability services across five boroughs of Greater Manchester, including Bury, Stockport and Tameside
The Trust has requested £130m to build a supercentre in Stockport or Tameside (location to be confirmed). This will be known as the South Manchester campus.
They have also submitted a £90m bid to build a new centre on the site of Bury’s Fairfield Hospital. This would involve potentially purchasing around two acres of land from the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust and making use of buildings they no longer require.
The new centres would allow lots of different services to be brought together into modern, top-of-the range facilities.
The Government has committed to build 40 new facilities as part of their £3.7bn health infrastructure plan (also known as the new hospitals’ programme). They’ve already approved 32 schemes and are accepting bids for the final eight.
If successful, the new centres will support the Trust’s ambition to invest in new facilities to benefit patients and staff. It will offer improved quality of care and recovery rates, care closer to people’s homes (supporting the national target of eliminating out of area placements) and reduced length of stay and readmission rates.
It supports their aim of providing a great place to work for existing staff, while also benefiting recruitment and retention. This will reduce reliance on temporary staffing, further saving money and improving quality.
Pennine Care also expects to save around £16m (£3m from the Stockport/Tameside development and £13m from Bury) mainly by not having to maintain ageing facilities and reducing rent on buildings they don’t own.
It’s expected the outcome of this first phase will be shared later this year, with the chosen eight schemes announced in spring 2022.
If successful, Pennine Care will involve staff, patients and others in further developing the plans to ensure the new centres meet their needs.
