The £814,000 variation at The Child and Family Health Centre in Barking, East London has now reached financial close.
The health centre, which opened in 2009 provides a range of community health services across three storeys, accommodating 3,288 sqm of space.
Some of these services include Speech and Language Therapy, Audiology, School Nurses and Health Visitors, and Child Development services.
Over the last two years, the requirement to reorganise the local estate and create greater efficiencies in service delivery has been highlighted.
Working together with North East London Foundation Trust (NELFT) and Barking and Dagenham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), the variation at the Axe Street site will seek to build upon the work that has already been achieved to date and co-locate complementary services that are currently being delivered in poorly maintained and inadequate facilities close by. The teams are working with Barking Dagenham Havering Community Ventures Ltd (LIFTco) and GB Partnerships (MSP) on this major variation project.
It will also look to move all children’s services delivered by the trust to the site which will centralise all children’s services in the locality.
The project which will start in February 2022 will reconfigure a number of areas within the building including space on the first and second floors, it will look to:
- Create appropriate space for service delivery, such as recognising the requirement for privacy and quiet space, and identifying services that should not operate side by side for safeguarding reasons.
- Create greater efficiencies across the building and utilise existing space to their maximum potential.
- Improve the utilisation and reduce void space in the building, by bringing in new services to complement current departments.
The variation which has been funded jointly by CHP and North East London NHS Foundation Trust will bring huge improvements to local healthcare, benefitting many patients and enabling the integration of services all under one roof.
Alison Butcher, Programme Manager at Community Health Partnerships (CHP) said:
“ I am thrilled to see the variation at The Child and Family Health Centre is underway. This project has been a long time coming, I’m excited that CHP can support our NHS partners to help achieve their aim of improving service delivery across the estate and make the best out of our building at the same time. It’s a great project to be involved in and I look forward to seeing it progress.”
The project forms part of NELFT and the local CCG’s wider Estates Optimisation Programme which aims to improve primary care delivery across the estate.
The variation is scheduled to complete in June 2022.
28 January 2021
