Isles of Scilly new health and care facility takes step forward
Phase one of moving the modules into place - which will make up the facility - starts today
A new health and social care facility on the Isles of Scilly is taking a major step forward.
Groundworks have been completed in the project and modules are being lifted into place on site from today.
Once complete later this year, the centre will be located on the site of St Mary's Community Hospital and land next to St Mary's Health Centre and will provide 12 residential care home beds, NHS impatient beds and a modern maternity suite.
Other outpatient services will continue. These include x-ray, minor injury unit, dental and consulting rooms.
Debbie Richards, chief executive of Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, said: "It's an integrated facility up next to GP service. We are well underway with that service now, all the groundwork has been completed and we will start to give the building some shape.
"It's going to provide multiple benefits. We will have a new modernised maternity suite there, we'll be upgrading some of our outpatient facilities, but it also means there will be seamless transfer between the care home and the hospital."
Together with the Council of the Isles of Scilly and colleagues from Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, primary care, South Western Ambulance Service, the voluntary sector and mental health services, Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust will provide robust services to keep people at home or close to home where clinically possible.
This will include maximising digital technologies and remote support to provide more enabled care on the islands.
Ken Jones, Build Lead, Community 1st Cornwall, said: "It has been a very unusual project in every way, shape or form. I have been doing complex projects for the NHS in Cornwall for 18 years or so. This is the most complicated.
"When Prince William came over for his visit, he said I will come back in a year and see how you are getting on. We are all hoping we can stand there with him at the back of the completed building and say, here you go."
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