Members of CHP’s Board visited properties across South London on Monday 23 September. They saw three sites; Tessa Jowell Health Centre, Waldron Health Centre and Akerman Health Centre alongside colleagues from within the buildings including Regional Director for London, Philippa Robinson.
All three of the sites are part of CHP’s Openspace pilot and the South East London optimisation programme. The programme increased the availability of place-based patient care at the same time as boosting the value for money of existing estate infrastructure.
The first building visited, Tessa Jowell Health Centre, was officially opened in 2023 having first been delivered in May 2020 at the peak of the COVID 19 pandemic.
Delivered under the NHS Local Improvement Finance Trust (NHS LIFT) Programme, the Tessa Jowell Health Centre is a shining example of public private partnership.
Led by Community Health Partnerships; investment partner Fulcrum, LIFTCo South London Health Partnership and NHS South East London, the £22.5m project was designed to integrate a range of health and wellbeing services all under one roof to help meet the needs of the growing local population.
Waldron Health Centre, New Cross, received a huge boost with a £2.3m project to deliver new and improved facilities. Built in 2008, the four-storey health centre offers local residents a range of integrated health and social care services in one state-of-the-art building. Waldron Health Centre has become a vital part of the local community over the past 16 years but, with a growing local population and changes in their health and social care needs, the centre was earmarked for further investment to remodel and improve the space and services available.
The works included increased space and new community areas, including a new reception area and more clinical spare to make the building more efficient. New clinical rooms for medical appointments, new community garden space and better on-site facilities such as improved heating and ventilation systems have also been added to create a better integration of health services.
Finally, the CHP party saw Akerman Health Centre which was built in 2012 and has grown to become a vital part of the local community, offering a range of integrated health and social care services all under one roof.
To ensure the building continues to serve the changing needs of the local area, the Akerman’s ground floor space was reconfigured in 2023 to create 5 new bookable rooms to be made available free of charge to community groups. The newly created space became the Akerman Wellbeing Hub which opened in Spring 2023. In its first year, the new wellbeing hub achieved a staggering £1.5m worth of social value.
The hub provides further vital services including podiatry, speech and language therapies, health visiting, a rapid response team and Lambeth healthy weight programme.
Read more about each building:
- Tessa Jowell Health Centre – Tessa Jowell Health Centre receives official opening
- Waldron Health Centre – Work underway on £2.3m improvements to Waldron Health Centre in New Cross, London
- Akerman Health Centre –Akerman Health Centre Wellbeing Hub generates over £1.5 Million in Social Value for local community in first Year
Get support from CHP
Get in touch with your CHP Regional Director and regional Property and Operations team to find out how they can support building utilisation and provide high-quality, modern, core NHS facilities for patients in their local communities.
