New £20m centre is bang on target

Photo: ANTHONY MILLER

THE 10-storey, 115ft building towering over Oldham Primary Care Trust chairman Riaz Ahmad, Councillor Jackie Stanton, and Ian Entwistle from construction company Carillion. Pictures by ANTHONY MILLER

OLDHAM’S £20 million flagship super health centre is on target to open next summer.

Work has now started on the interior of the Integrated Care Centre (ICC) and Riaz Ahmad, chairman of Oldham Primary Care Trust (PCT), said: “I am delighted that we have reached yet another milestone.”

Over the last two years, residents have been able to watch, step by step, the construction of the 115 ft, 10-storey building.

Mr Ahmad said: “Along with many new developments in places such as Royton, Werneth, Shaw and Crompton and the Saddleworth area, this centre will offer the very best health services to the people in Oldham.

Materials used so far in the construction include:

372 tons of steel, enough for about 31 buses.

41,26 cubic metres of concrete — enough to fill more than two Olympic-sized swimming pools.

2,940 square metres of tiles, which would cover more than half a football pitch.

198 windows.

In addition, 450 tons of waste has been recycled and 744 jobs have been created — many for local people.

Construction has involved a partnership between Community 1st Ltd, construction company Carillion, and J21 and Oldham and Rochdale’s Local Labour in Construction Initiative.

Patients entering the building will be directed to the appropriate care service, with visitors able to enjoy a drink at the ground-floor cafe.

Urgent care services, made up of nursing, medical, dental and pharmaceutical advice, as well as diagnostic facilities, will be accessed on the ground floor.

Self-care and self-help facilities, providing information about specific conditions or complaints, will be on the lower ground floor along with the patient advice and liaison service.

On the first floor will be the consultation rooms for GPs and other primary care services, with electronic booking helping to reduce waiting times.

The second floor will house the extended primary care treatment and diagnostics services, a hub for the main Integrated Clinical Assessment and Treatment Services (ICATS) which will allow patients to be assessed, diagnosed and treated.

The third floor will be home to dental and podiatry services (feet) and on the fourth floor there will be specialist therapy services.

Innovative features will fill the centre such as descriptive pictures, symbols and colour-coded floors to help patients navigate their way around. The fifth floor is for administration and the sixth for staff and a canteen. It has yet yet been decided who will occupy the remaining floors.

Neil Charlesworth, general manager of Community 1st, said: “It’s very exciting to know that this time next year this facility will be open to the public and delivering high quality services from such a high quality building.”

Building works are expected to be completed by April or May, leaving two months to install equipment and train staff. Tours around the building will continue next week for GPs, PCT and council staff.