Pershore Hospital and Health Centre

‘Town with £6m to spare says: let’s build a hospital’  

The Times  Monday 10 April 2006

We’ve built a hospital and health centre on our Civic Centre site in Pershore.  This joint venture with South Worcestershire Primary Care Trust (PCT) provides a new 26 bed cottage hospital, therapy services with an emphasis on rehabilitation and a new health centre for thirteen GPs.

We’re leasing the new £6.5 million complex back to the PCT.  The PCT will run the hospital and provide the services. Dr Pitts-Tucker and partners have moved into the new health centre from their previous location in Priest Lane.

Health is residents’ number one priority as our recent research shows.  When South Worcestershire PCT wanted to close the much-loved Pershore Cottage Hospital and replace it with accommodation in a local care home, hundreds of residents turned out to protest.

So our Health Scrutiny Team came up with a plan to invest some of our capital to build a hospital and health centre on our Civic Centre site and the PCT accepted our recommendation.

Everyone benefits from this ‘public-public’ partnership.  Local people get a new hospital and health centre, NHS dentists and a physiotherapy unit all under one roof.  The PCT gets a more affordable deal than the private finance initiative (PFI) model could ever deliver with our Corporate Projects team overseeing all aspects of the design and build.  And we get an income stream from our £6.5 million investment at a better rate of return than if we left the money in the bank.  So we’re making our money work for us and most importantly, for the community.

Further Information

For more information about Pershore Hospital contact:

Brian Norfolk
Head of Corporate Projects
Telephone: 01386 565230
Email: Brian.Norfolk@wychavon.gov.uk

or Councillor Mrs Judy Pearce, Executive Board Member for Health