By Charlotte Webster-
The NHS is struggling to fund The Altrincham Health and Wellbeing Centre, originally set up as a hub for South Trafford . The sustaining of the hub now requires an extra £1.5m to turn part of a brand new health centre into OFFICE space
The Eye Of Media.Com has heard that it originally cost £24m to build, before health chiefs discovered local GP practices and other services were unwilling to move in. Works began in 2016 with demolition of the existing building undertaken by Hale-based McAuliffe Environmental Ltd and approved by the NHS Trafford Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Trafford Council .
It was originally intended to incorporate GP health services, a new Altrincham Library and Tourist Information Centre, the Trafford Care Co-ordination Centre, a mix of community services and therapies, a pharmacy, and clinical suites and training areas, including a minor surgery suite
St John’s Medical Centre, Greater Manchester Health NHS Trust, Pennine Community Services and Barrington medical centre were all lined up to take up tenancies last autumn, with a minor surgery suite and a heart failure clinic. None of those plans materialised, and the library is the only organisation currently operating in the hub is a library.
Ridiculously, the NHS is forced to pay an estimated £2.35m running costs a year, despite the fact that no patient has so far used the centre. The debacle has left many criticising the whole arrangements, and ridiculing the NHS which is short staff and underfunded for spending such large amounts on a centre that is virtually serving no operational purposes.
26 year old Marcus Alderson from Manchester told The Eye Of Media.Com : ”I think it is awful that the NHS is spending so much money on a centre that has not been used at all. It is shocking that in a time where the Nhs is going through a crisis, so much funds could have been diverted to a course that is bearing no fruit. Somebody should be loosing their job over this”.
Alderson’s view was echoed by 31 year old Sally Hall who works at the Altricham Medical Practice in Lloyds Street said: ”What a shame to discover that so much money has been spent on something that nobody has used. Where did the money go? It makes no sense, unless someone has been pocketing more than their fair share. This is unbelievable, and now they are talking of investing an extra £1.5m because the NHS can’t afford the rent”.
Trafford’s clinical commissioning group have now called for another £1.5m is spent converting the third floor into commercial office space in order to offset that recurrent bill.
Under arrangements with extra funding, GP and other health services would occupy the first and second floors on the grounds their rent charges will not change.
Image: Altricham Today